Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION, SCOTLAND

School Building Programmes

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many local education authorities' school building programmes are now held up for shortage of steel; and how far this situation will be remedied within the next six months.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Henderson Stewart): Inquiries made of education authorities show that no schools now under construction are held up for lack of steel: but the Lanarkshire and Glasgow authorities have had to postpone starting 10 schools for this reason. My right hon. Friend can give no precise forecast of how the situation will change in the next six months, but, as the hon. Member was informed on 29th October, the needs of school building will be fully taken into account in future allocations of steel.

Mr. Hamilton: In regard to these 10 schools, whose starting is being held up, can the Minister indicate what is represented in terms of money? Can he give any approximate forecast of what is to happen in the next six or 12 months? Are the Government to increase the allocation of steel for school building, or will there be a less amount than in the previous period?

Mr. Stewart: I am sorry that I cannot give the hon. Member an answer in reply to the first part of his supplementary question, but I shall be glad to look into it if he puts it down. In reply to the other question, I am not really able to say. We should very much like it if it could be extended, because we want more schools.

Mr. Rankin: Can the Joint Under-Secretary say whether it is primary or secondary schools which are being held up in Glasgow?

Mr. Stewart: If the hon. Member will be so kind as to put that question down, I could give him a proper answer.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Glasgow is already £3 million behind in starting schools because of concentration on housing? Already there is a great problem in Glasgow caused by bringing children by motor vehicles from outlying areas to the older schools in the city. Is it economy to prevent Glasgow getting on with the building of schools, involving, as it does, this traffic backwards and forwards which might be avoided? Surely the beginnings could be made, because I understand that the steel shortage is likely to be lessened very soon?

Mr. Stewart: As the right hon. Member knows better than I do, there are seven schools in Glasgow where building has been held up, and all seven will be on very difficult high ground, involving the use of an excessive amount of steel. It is on that account that we have to hold up the building for the time being.

Mr. Bence: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of schools under construction in Clydebank, and the number proposed.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Two new schools are at present under construction in Clydebank and seven more are proposed.

Mr. Bence: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the overcrowding in the schools, not only of Clydebank but the whole county of Dunbartonshire, is worse than that in any other county of Scotland? Will the hon. Gentleman instigate an inquiry about why further progress has not been made in Dunbartonshire and Clydebank to provide adequate accommodation for the children?

Mr. Stewart: I do not think that an inquiry would be any advantage. We are fully aware of the circumstances. The hon. Member is right in his description of the situation. We should like to do more, and if steel were available we should probably do it.

Mr. Wheatley: Can the hon. Gentleman say when a start will be made on the building of the proposed schools?

Mr. Stewart: I can give the right hon. and learned Gentleman a lot of facts if he wants them. There are two schools under construction now. Both schools were started in 1950. Both should be ready in 1953. There are two other schools now being extended, and there are seven schools now scheduled for building.

Mr. Wheatley: I asked when a start would be made on building the seven scheduled schools.

Mr. Stewart: I am sorry. I cannot answer that question.

Mr. Carmichael: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many new schools are under construction in Scotland; how many were commenced since January, 1952; and what was the number of schools completed during 1950 and 1951.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: The latest date to which statistics are available is 30th September. Eighty-four schools were then under construction, of which 22 were begun in 1952. Twenty-four schools were completed in 1950 and 29 in 1951.

St. John's School, Uddingston (Conditions)

Mr. Timmons: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the nature of the report of Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools on the physical conditions in St. John's School, Uddingston; and what are the prospects of a new school in the near future.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Physical conditions at this school are unsatisfactory, but they have been improved during the last few years by minor alterations to the main building and by the addition of five new rooms. The Education Authority intend to provide new buildings, but it may be some time before this can be done, as priority must be given to the provision of schools in new housing areas where no accommodation exists.

Mr. Timmons: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that is just not a correct report of the conditions prevailing at that school? Is he further aware that in 1939 I happened to be a member of the

Lanarkshire Education Sub-Committee who went to see that school; that there was a plan for a new school at that time; that certain improvements were being recommended to carry us through the period of the war, and that up to the moment all that has transpired is an increase of one or two huts to meet the increased school-leaving age?
May I ask him to make further representations to his right hon. Friend to direct the Lanarkshire Education Authority—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—to instruct the Lanarkshire Education Authority to go ahead? There are over 800 pupils in that school and it is the most shocking school in Scotland.

Mr. Stewart: The hon. Member asked me the nature of the report of Her Majesty's Inspector, and I gave him truly and accurately the nature of that report. The circumstances are unsatisfactory and we would like to get a new school built there. Much has been done, but we would like to do a great deal more.

Further Education, Glasgow

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many junior colleges are now functioning in Glasgow.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Glasgow Education Authority provides eight further education centres which students attend under day-release arrangements for one day or more each week.

Mr. Rankin: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that that is far too small a number? Does not he realise that, in view of the apparent increase in social delinquency in a great city like Glasgow, a more vigorous prosecution of the attempt to build more junior colleges would be of great benefit and might moderate the talk about re-introducing the cat?

Mr. Stewart: I am in sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's views. About 10 per cent. of the young people in employment in Scotland now attend day-release courses.

Mr. Rankin: That is a small number.

Mr. Stewart: I agree. I should like to see it increased; but the junior colleges provided by the Act after the war were stopped by the Act of 1949, to our great regret.

Mr. Rankin: May I take it from the hon. Gentleman's answer that he intends to go ahead with the building of junior colleges and that there is no ban on their expansion?

Mr. Stewart: For the reasons which the hon. Gentleman knows well, there is not sufficient steel. That is the only holdup. Were there steel, I should be most anxious to go ahead.

Mr. Rankin: Then why de-nationalise?

Mr. T. Fraser: Will the hon. Gentleman have a look at the Act of 1949, because I think that he will find that that Act did not stop the junior colleges in Glasgow or elsewhere in Scotland?

Mr. Stewart: In fact, the provisions of the earlier Act were to have been brought into effect not later than 1st April, 1950, but because of post-war economic difficulties they were postponed indefinitely by the Education (Scotland) Act, 1949. Those are the facts.

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many Glasgow school children who had attained 15 years of age at the last school leaving date continued their education; how many completed the full secondary course; and what percentage this was of the total school enrolment for this city.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I regret that it has not been possible to obtain the information requested in time for this reply, but I will write to the hon. Member as soon as I have received it.

Mr. Rankin: In view of that, I must ask for the right to postpone this question for future oral examination.

Double Shift System, Glasgow

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many schools in Glasgow now operate the double shift system of school attendance.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: There are three.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Light Industries, Glenrothes

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to ensure the establishment of light industry in the new town of Glenrothes, Fife.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Commander T. D. Galbraith): Extensions to existing factories at Glenrothes have been approved in recent years and a further large extension of an established factory in the area is in prospect. In addition, industrial concerns who have in mind the building of new factories in Scotland are made aware of the sites and facilities available at Glenrothes.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the Minister aware that the estimated labour force available for new light industry in Glenrothes in the next three years will be approximately 1,000? Can he indicate whether any inquiries have been made by industrialists and, if so, what have been the results of those inquiries?

Commander Galbraith: Yes, Sir. Inquiries have been made recently. I cannot tell the hon. Member what the ultimate outcome of those inquiries will be.

Highland Farmers (Credit Facilities)

Mr. Bence: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking Ito assure adequate credit facilities to Highland farmers.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. McNair Snadden): The same credit facilities are available to Highland farmers as to other farmers, and my right hon. Friend has no reason to believe that they are inadequate. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has stated that he has taken steps to make it clear to the banks that in applying their advances policy, they should give full weight to the vital importance of agricultural production.

Mr. Bence: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a farmer in Inverness-shire has failed to get bank credit facilities for the development of his farm in the last six months, and is still trying to get those facilities and is refused them? Will the hon. Gentleman see that this farmer is granted the necessary bank advance to increase food production on his farm?

Mr. Snadden: I have already stated that the Chancellor has taken steps to make it clear to the banks what his policy is, that is to give credit where at all possible for production purposes. If a person cannot put up some sort of


security that is a matter for the banks, but we have made our policy clear in terms of production.

Mr. Bence: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this particular farmer has a farm of 350 acres which is not mortgaged to any one? Is that not good enough security for a bank credit in order to develop the farm?

Electricity Supplies

Mr. Palmer: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) if the views of the Chairman and members of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board have been sought in connection with the examination of the supply of electricity in Scotland, promised in the Queen's Speech;
(2) if he will give an assurance that in the examination of the supply of electricity in Scotland, promised in the Queen's Speech, consultations will be held with the trade unions representing all grades of employees in the electricity supply industry.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: My right hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power are aware of the views which the Chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board has expressed on this subject; and they hope to have consultations in the near future with representatives of that body and of the other electricity authorities concerned. My right hon. Friends will also be very ready to consider any views which representatives of those employed in the industry may wish to put before them.

Mr. Palmer: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that Mr. Thomas Johnston is not at all happy about the implications of this scheme?

Mr. Stewart: I have difficulty in accepting that. I would repeat the assurance given by my right hon. Friend, which is I think a complete assurance, on 18th November, when he said:
I do not contemplate that any change in the present organisation of the electricity industry in Scotland would impair the special responsibilities for the Highlands and Islands placed on the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board by the Hydro-Electric Development (Scotland) Act, 1943."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1952; Vol. 507, c. 1576.]

Farming Efficiency

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland to give details of the measures he intends against inefficient farmers.

Mr. Snadden: The measures in question are those laid down in the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948. Procedure for the application of these measures is being speeded up in accordance with the terms of the announcement made last April by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture on behalf of the Government that vigorous action would be taken to ensure that our limited area of agricultural land is neither used inadequately nor misused through incompetence.

Mr. Grimond: While agreeing that it is very important that agriculture should be efficient, might I ask the Joint Under-Secretary whether he would not also agree that this is a matter of great difficulty owing to the different conditions? Will he take steps to speed up the matters of which he has spoken, and will he bear in mind that the agricultural committees are not an entirely satisfactory method of doing this work in all cases, and that what is really wanted is a system which will reward the efficient farmer, on whatever ground he is, and penalise the inefficient farmer?

Mr. Snadden: It is difficult to take into account all the factors since our agricultural economy varies so much from area to area. I would not accept the view that the committees have been inefficient in their task. The hon. Member can take it from me that we will do everything possible to consider the varying conditions in all the areas of Scotland.

Mr. M. MacMillan: Is the Joint Under-Secretary aware that he has a great deal of support from Members on this side of the House for his very courageous and enlightened speech to the farmers' federation on this matter the other day?

Mr. Grimond: Will the Joint Under-Secretary take it that I did not imply that the agricultural committees were inefficient but that there is a limit to the amount of this sort of work which they can undertake?

Mr. S. N. Evans: Would it not be a great help if we could have returns of sales from farms from every agricultural


holding in the country, and is it not a fact that if we could only raise the production of farm-fed beef to the same level as that of farm-fed propaganda we should all be able to live like fighting cocks?

Mr. Snadden: In reply to the first question of the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans), which requires an answer, it involves more forms, but we are considering the possibility of getting a production return.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland to what extent landlords in Scotland are not fulfilling their State management responsibilities in the campaign for increasing food production; and what steps he proposes to increase food production on these estates.

Mr. Snadden: Where landlords are not fulfilling their estate management responsibilities, as defined in the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948, the agricultural executive committees will not hesitate to use their statutory powers in the interest of efficient production. Since the introduction of the Act, 30 warning notices have been served on landlords; 12 of these notices are still in force. In the last resort, dispossession may take place.

Mr. Hughes: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we are gratified at the stand he is taking against inefficient landlords as well as inefficient farmers, and will he assure us that no vested landlord interests on the benches behind him will prevent him taking the rigorous action necessary to increase food production?

Mr. Snadden: I do not think the hon. Gentleman need be afraid of that.

Doctors' Prescriptions

Mr. Carmichael: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that doctors in Glasgow are having accounts submitted to them by the Executive Council for prescriptions issued to patients; who is responsible for this charge; and whether he realises that if this policy continues doctors will refuse to issue such prescriptions with consequent suffering to patients, most of whom are suffering from tuberculosis.

Commander Galbraith: A doctor who writes a prescription under the National Health Service for a preparation that

ranks as a food and not a drug is in breach of his terms of service, and is liable to repay to the Executive Council the cost of dispensing the prescription.

Mr. Carmichael: Will the Joint Under-Secretary look at the matter again, because I have evidence from doctors who have declared to the Executive Council that they gave the prescriptions as medicines, and if the doctors are to have these accounts rendered regularly they will stop prescribing and the patients will consequently suffer? I can give the Joint Under-Secretary documentary evidence to show that to my mind—[Interruption.] I want an answer to the point. When the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) becomes the Joint Under-Secretary—

Mr. Nabarro: On a point of order. I did not say a word.

Mr. Carmichael: Some Member must have been mimicking the hon. Gentleman. I want to know if this is an economy to injure further the free medical service in Scotland, because, as I have already stated, I can give documentary evidence of doctors having given a prescription as a medicine and not as a food to tuberculosis cases?

Commander Galbraith: I can assure the hon. Member that it is not an economy measure. The fact is that when selecting prescriptions that apparently relate to food the Pricing Bureau and the Executive Council are guided by advice from an expert committee, which is circulated to all doctors so that they know whether they are prescribing drugs or not.

Mr. Carmichael: If I give the hon. and gallant Member the evidence, will he look further into the matter?

Commander Galbraith: I shall be delighted to look into any evidence which the hon. Member sends me.

Young Farmers (Land)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland his estimate of the number of young able farmers who are unable to acquire land for farming in Scotland.

Mr. Snadden: There is no statistical information available on which an estimate could be based: but my right hon. Friend is aware, of course, that the demand for vacant farms to rent is high.

Mr. Hughes: Are we to assume that the hon. Gentleman made his speech about the number of young able farmers without any statistical evidence before him? Is he aware that a number of large estates in the North of Scotland could be usefully divided up to employ some of these young able farmers?

Mr. Snadden: I have said in reply to the first part of the Question that we are aware of the general demand for farms, but we have no detailed statistical information to give us the specific number.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Would my hon. Friend agree that one of the main reasons for these keen young men not being able to get farms is due to the fixity of tenure which came about as a result of Socialist legislation for security of tenure?

Mr. Woodburn: Will the hon. Gentleman convey another warning to some people in Scotland who are not making the best use of the land they are farming and inform them that if they do not do so there are plenty of powers—in spite of what the hon. and gallant Gentleman says—lying with the Government to see that they are removed from their farms and more efficient farmers put in their place?

Mr. Snadden: That was the whole point of the speech to which the hon. Gentleman referred, to remove what I would call chronically inefficient farmers to make room for younger men who are able to farm efficiently.

Hospital Services, Fife (Expansion)

Mr. Hubbard: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will now make a statement on the steps being taken to provide a better hospital service in Fife.

Commander Galbraith: Yes, Sir. After intensive study the Regional Hospital Board have drawn up a programme for execution over the next eight years to expand the hospital service in Fife.
Re-arrangement of existing facilities will shortly release for general purposes 30 additional beds at Cameron Bridge, and effect some improvement in the rate of dealing with surgical work at Kirkcaldy. For the rest, there will have to be

building, which is planned to yield 150 additional beds by the end of 1955; another 100 beds the next year, and a new hospital of 350 beds at Cameron Bridge by the end of 1960.
My right hon. Friend has approved this programme in principle. But it calls for building operations costing almost £2 million, and whether it can proceed at the rate envisaged will depend upon the extent to which resources can be spared from other essential work.

Mr. Hubbard: While thanking the hon. and gallant Gentleman for his expeditious action in this matter, which will be greatly appreciated by the large number of patients awaiting hospital beds, may I have his assurance that the amenities in these hospitals will be of a sufficiently high standard to attract medical and nursing staffs? Further, may I have his assurance that the proposed hospital units at Kirkcaldy will not delay the proposed hospital at Cameron Bridge?

Commander Galbraith: The hon. Gentleman may be fully assured on the first point, and the detailed information I have given him on the second point should, I think, assure him also on that.

Fishery Protection Cruisers

Mr. M. MacMillan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to strengthen the fleet of fishery protection cruisers in Scotland.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: The fishery protection fleet has been considerably strengthened since the war by the replacement of two old cruisers by modern vessels and the commissioning of an additional cruiser in place of a hired steam drifter. The efficiency of the fleet has also been increased by the installation of radar and echo sounders in a number of these ships. An order has recently been placed for the building of a further new fishery cruiser to replace another of the older vessels.

Mr. MacMillan: While I appreciate that the fleet has been strengthened, and that they are undoubtedly doing their very best to protect our fisheries, is the hon. Gentleman aware that there has been a tendency for our own and foreign vessels to be forced back into British waters especially since the new restrictions in foreign waters off Iceland and


Norway, and that the threat has been observed to be growing round the Hebridian waters and up in the north-west? Will he ask the fishery cruisers to do even a little better than their best in future?

Mr. Stewart: I will take notice of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.

Mr. Woodburn: May I ask whether the aeroplane is still working in conjunction with the fishery cruisers, as the difficulty always is to get evidence which convicts these people? May I also ask his Department to consider whether a helicopter would be more efficient in getting within range of the vessels in order to prove the case?

Mr. Stewart: I will gladly take note of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks

Second-hand Clothing (Infectious Diseases)

Mr. M. MacMillan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the danger to health from the uncontrolled disposal and sale of second-hand clothing; and what action he intends to take to control the disposal of at least the personal clothing and bedding of patients dying in institutions and at their homes of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.

Commander Galbraith: I am informed that, when infectious disease arises, the normal practice is for hospitals and local authorities to advise or arrange for the destruction or disinfection of clothing and bedding so far as they consider necessary to avoid the spread of disease. If the hon. Member has any special case in mind, I shall be glad to make inquiries.

Mr. MacMillan: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that he could go into any auction room on almost any day when a sale is taking place in Scotland and find this filthy and poisonous trade going on in infected clothing and bedding belonging to people who have died from tuberculosis and other infectious diseases? Cannot we have some statutory power to control this practice?

Commander Galbraith: The Public Health Act empowers sanitary inspectors to inspect and to disinfect the houses,

personal clothing and bedding of persons notified as suffering from infectious diseases, or who are known to have died at home from infectious diseases.

Mr. MacMillan: Is it not the case that people do dispose of the personal clothing and bedding of people who have died in their homes from infectious diseases; and does the hon. Gentleman not agree that that is a most undesirable practice? Would he not make some effort to take the initiative now? I do not care about what references he may feel inclined to make about previous Governments when replying to supplementary questions.

Mr. Speaker: I should like again to renew my frequent appeal to hon. Members to ask short supplementary questions.

Crofters, Balmartin (Land)

Mr. M. MacMillan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has considered the repeated requests to him by the crofters of Balmartin, in the Isle of North Uist, to assist them in having their holdings enlarged from the neighbouring estate land of Balelone; why he has rejected their past requests; and what action he is now taking to help these crofters to secure adequate land for a reasonable livelihood.

Mr. Snadden: The request of the Balmartin holders raises difficult questions of agricultural and social policy which are closely related to the remit of the Crofting Commission, and my right hon. Friend proposes to defer a final decision until the Commission's Report is available.

Mr. MacMillan: That Report may not be available for a long time. Would the Secretary of State—I am sorry that he is not here—in fairness to any possible buyer of this estate in North Uist, warn him that he will not have peace or comfort in possession of it so long as the Hebridians are suffering from land hunger? [Interruption.] I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker, but this is an extremely important question. I wish that the right hon. Gentleman opposite would keep his voice on a level with his intelligence—as low as possible.
Is the Joint Under-Secretary aware that these men have given notice that they intend to raid this estate on Friday of


this week? Is he also aware that they fully mean all they say? They have tried every constitutional method and have been driven to this—[Interruption.] Since I have your permission to finish the question, Mr. Speaker, in spite of the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams)—

Captain Pilkington: On a point of order. Ought not the hon. Member to follow your request as to the length of supplementary questions?

Mr. Speaker: I am always full of hope that the supplementary question is coming to an end at the next moment. I do not like to prolong it by intervening too often.

Mr. MacMillan: Might I say, in finishing my supplementary question, that these men were also full of hope and they have abandoned hope because the Secretary of State has forced them to this pass? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that these men have given up the hope of any satisfaction of their just claims? They have tried every constitutional approach and have been refused a perfectly just and natural claim.

Mr. Snadden: It is impossible to state the date when the Commission will report. We know that they are reaching the end of their job of taking evidence. In reply to the second part of the question, I would point out that this farm is a large and productive unit which provides employment locally. My right hon. Friend is in some doubt as to whether the division of this farm into smaller units among the various people who wish to share the land would necessarily be in the best interests of the community. He prefers to await the Report of the Commission, who took a special look at this case when touring the Island.

Mr. MacMillan: I wish to give notice that, in view of the failure of the Secretary of State to protect the natural rights of the crofters of the Hebrides, I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment and by every other method, constitutional or otherwise.

English Herring Season (Scottish Boats)

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland to make a statement on the results of the Scottish boats at the English herring season.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Two hundred and forty-two Scottish drifters took part in the recent East Anglian fishing. The majority had left for home by 18th November, rather earlier than usual. The weather was consistently rough, as I saw, and the quality of the fish mixed, and after 1st November catches were poor. In the result, the average gross earnings of the Scottish boats were only about £1,630 as against £2,380 for the longer season last year. Loss and damage to gear has also been greater.

Mr. Grimond: In view of the poor season and the hardship caused to some fishermen, and their families who went south to gut, have the Government considered giving any assistance in the replacement of gear, because the losses have been rather serious in some cases?

Mr. Stewart: I think that the answer is "No." The losses of Scottish fishermen—I think largely because they own their own gear—were very much less serious than those of English fishermen. I am not sure that the losses were so very heavy as to make action of the kind suggested necessary.

Mr. Duthie: Will my hon. Friend agree that his statement emphasises the necessity for legislation to be introduced to continue the provisions of the Herring Industry Act which expired in August last?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING, SCOTLAND

Fire Outbreaks, Ballingry

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware of the growing alarm in the Ballingry area of Fife caused by the frequent outbreak of fire in the Cruden houses there; and what steps he proposes to take to remedy the situation.

Commander Galbraith: I know of no reason for alarm. There have been three minor fires in these houses since January, 1951. Two are believed to have been caused by carelessness and the third by an electrical fault. I am assured that the remedial measures previously recommended to local authorities for this type of house are adequate to ensure the tenants' safety.

Mr. Hamilton: But is the Minister aware that there is considerable alarm in


this area, where I have talked to people who have expressed alarm? Is he aware that these people are expecting the Department to take some decisive action in this problem, which has been in existence for some considerable time?

Commander Galbraith: There does not seem to be any reason for alarm from the figures available. In the 2,600 houses of this type in Scotland only four minor incidents have occurred in a matter of 22 months. That does not seem any reason for alarm. As the hon. Member knows, measures have already been taken.

Mr. Wheatley: Is it not the case that plans for these houses are approved by the Department of Health and that the houses built by the Cruden firm have proved very satisfactory in many areas?

Commander Galbraith: I agree with the right hon. and learned Member.

Rent Tribunals

Mr. Manuel: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how often each of the rent tribunals in Scotland has met during the past year; and what is the number of cases each has dealt with.

Commander Galbraith: As the answer involves a table of figures, I shall, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Manuel: Can the Joint Under-Secretary say whether a number of these rent tribunals have not met during the past year?

Commander Galbraith: I have no evidence of that before me, but I will look into the matter.

Mr. Wheatley: Is the Joint Under-Secretary of State satisfied that the people of Scotland are sufficiently aware of their right of recourse to these tribunals? Will he recommend to local authorities the giving of greater publicity to the rights of individuals to have recourse to these tribunals?

Commander Galbraith: I should have thought that the public were fully informed on this matter.

Mr. Manuel: As the hon. and gallant Gentleman has the figures before him, could he state the number of rent tribunals which have not met during the past year?

Commander Galbraith: I cannot give that answer on the information before me.

The following are the figures:

The number of meetings of each rent tribunal in Scotland during the year ended 30th September, 1952, and the number of cases referred to each tribunal during that period was as follows:


Tribunal
Meetings
Cases referred


City of Aberdeen
6
28


City of Dundee
1
—


City of Edinburgh
13
26


City of Glasgow
35
207


Counties of Aberdeen and Kincardine
2
4


Angus
1
1


North Argyll
—
—


South Argyll and Bute
2
1


North Ayrshire
4
8


South Ayrshire
1
2


Counties of Banff and Moray
1
1


Counties of Berwick, Roxburgh and Selkirk
—
—


Caithness
—
—


Counties of Clackmannan and Stirling
2
5


Dumfries and Galloway
2
6


Dunbartonshire
4
10


Fife (Dunfermline Area)
—
2


Fife (Central and East Area)
6
15


Harris and Lewis
—
—


Counties of Inverness and Nairn
4
3


Lanarkshire
6
7


Lothians and Peebles
2
3


Orkney
—
—


Counties of Perth and Kinross
4
6


East Renfrewshire
6
19


West Renfrewshire
2
4


Ross and Cromarty
—
—


Sutherland
1
1


Zetland
—
—



105
359

Mr. Manuel: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the average annual cost of operating a rent tribunal in Scotland.

Commander Galbraith: The total fees and expenses of members of the 29 tribunals in Scotland for the year ended 31st March, 1952, was £1,123. To this must be added an allocation of expenses incurred by the Department of Health and local authorities in servicing the tribunals, which it is estimated would bring the total expenditure up to about £2,900, or an average of £100 per tribunal.

Mr. Manuel: The Joint Under-Secretary of State has indicated that the average expenditure for a rent tribunal is £100. Is he aware that the work must


be much better performed in England? As the expenditure per rent tribunal was, on last year's basis, £2,000 in England, they must be dealing with many more cases. Is the Joint Under-Secretary further aware that the estimated expenditure under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill is estimated as being, for Scotland, on an average, £44 16s. 6d. per rent tribunal, and for England an average of £1,764?
Is the Joint Under-Secretary further aware that this is solely because there is not enough publicity about what protection sub-let tenants can obtain in Scotland? Will he take steps to see that he brings up the standard in Scotland to the same level as that in England so that we can get that exploitation avoided?

Commander Galbraith: In reply to the first part of the hon. Member's supplementary question, the answer is, "No, Sir" because the figures are in no way comparable. In regard to publicity, I hope that the hon. Gentleman's Question will give further publicity to the matter.

Repairs and Maintenance

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many houses in Scotland are annually becoming fit for condemnation for lack of repair.

Commander Galbraith: The information asked for could be obtained only by means of a house to house survey and I should not feel justified in asking local authorities to undertake so heavy a task at the present time. My right hon. Friend is, however, aware of the problem and is considering what measures might be taken to deal with it.

Mr. Grimond: While I appreciate the difficulty of finding out the figures, might I ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman whether he agrees that this is a most serious matter, because a great number of houses are falling out of repair? Does not it warrant an inquiry to find out the true facts to see if any steps can be taken to stop the trend?

Mr. McInnes: As the hon. and gallant Gentleman said in reply to a Question last week that he was unable to indicate the extent of the housing problem in Scotland, and as this week he is unable to give any indication of the extent of disrepair, is it not time that action was taken to acquaint hon. Members as to the extent of this problem in Scotland?

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF PENSIONS

Ex-Prisoners of War, Japan (Compensation)

Mr. H. Nicholls: asked the Minister of Pensions if mothers of unmarried ex-Japanese prisoners of war, who have since died, can be made eligible for the per capita payment now being distributed.

Mr. R. Robinson: asked the Minister of Pensions what progress has now been made with the distribution of the per capita grant to those who were Far East prisoners of war; when is it hoped to complete this distribution; what are the prospects of a second distribution; and how far it will be possible to widen this second distribution so as to include the parents of unmarried men and orphans.

Mr. J. T. Price: asked the Minister of Pensions to make a statement on the progress which has been made in the distribution of gratuities to ex-prisoners of war lately held by the Japanese; and what average sum is calculated to be payable.

The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Heath-coat Amory): Thanks to the co-operation of the F.E.P.O.W. clubs and associations and the Government Departments concerned, good progress has been made since the scheme was announced on 6th October. Some 20,000 payments have been made. We are making payments at the rate of 1,000 a day, and the vast majority should receive their initial share of £15 by Christmas.
The possibility of widening the scheme to include parents of unmarried prisoners of war who died in captivity, or since, and also orphans, is receiving careful consideration, but no decision can be reached until the total of claims from prisoners of war, civilian internees and widows is known.
The question of a second distribution will depend on the realisation of the remaining Japanese assets in the United Kingdom and on whether the eligible categories are to be extended.

Mr. Nicholls: While congratulating the Minister on the speedy and effective way in which he has put this into operation, may I ask him if he will pay special attention to the parents of these prisoners of war and to mothers of prisoners of war who are themselves widowed?

Mr. Amory: Yes, I should like to assure my hon. Friend that I will give specially sympathetic consideration to the type of case which he has mentioned.

Mr. Price: Is it not a deplorable circumstance that these worthy men, who have suffered at the hands of the Japanese, should now suffer further humiliation by this paltry award? Would it not have been more compatible with our alliance with our American allies that there should have been a greater realisation of our rights under the Japanese Treaty than was actually accorded to them in that document?

Mr. Amory: The responsibility of the present Government is limited to a decision as to how this sum of money which is available shall be distributed.

Mr. Robinson: So far as the merits of the cases of parents and orphans are concerned, will my right hon. Friend do all he can to ensure that those merits are not obscured by difficulties of administration?

Mr. Amory: I will give that assurance.

Widows (Alternative Pensions)

Brigadier Clarke: asked the Minister of Pensions if he will increase the alternative widows' pensions awarded to widows of Service men killed in the 1914–18 War to bring them into line with pension increases recently granted.

Mr. Amory: I refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) on 10th November.

Brigadier Clarke: Does not my right hon. Friend appreciate that these elderly widows of the First World War have had a very raw deal for a very long time, and, further, that a comparatively small sum of money would make the latter days of their lives very happy?

Mr. Amory: I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend will remember that these widows, if they are in receipt of the alternative pension, are receiving a higher pension than the normal standard of war widows' pensions, but, if it is to their

advantage to transfer to the standard pension, that is arranged.

Mr. Morley: Is the Minister aware that these widows have had no increase at all in their pensions for over 20 years? If these pensions were adequate over 20 years ago, how can they be adequate today, when the cost of living has doubled? Would it not be only elementary justice to give them some increase?

Mr. Amory: I still feel that, as these widows are in receipt of a higher rate than the standard rate, they are not, relatively, being badly treated. The alternative pension scheme was dropped. It was thought unsatisfactory in working, and it was dropped many years ago, and was not applied to the widows of the Second World War. I really do not think that there is any relative hardship being done at present to the widows of the First World War.

Staff Reductions

Mr. Simmons: asked the Minister of Pensions how far the reduction in staff noted in Command Paper No. 8691 involves curtailment of his Department's welfare services.

Mr. Amory: I can assure the hon. Member that the staff reduction in question involves no such curtailment.

Mr. Simmons: asked the Minister of Pensions the net reduction of staff during 1950–51 and 1951–52; and what proportion has been effected in services rendered under the National Health Act.

Mr. Amory: During the years ended 31st March, 1951, and 31st March, 1952, the staff of my Department was reduced by about 500 and 1,170, respectively. There was no reduction in the staff employed on work connected with the supply of artificial limbs and other appliances under the National Health Service.

Mr. Simmons: Could the Minister say whether any of these reductions has involved any curtailment or suspension of the development of the Ministry's welfare services?

Mr. Amory: No, Sir; none at all.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Home Guard

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for War how many men he is now aiming to recruit to the Home Guard.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Antony Head): We can now enrol up to 90,000.

Mr. Swingler: In view of the way in which Opposition warnings about the recruitment of the Home Guard have been justified by events, would it not be wise to review the whole organisation of the Home Guard before proceeding with further recruitment? What, for example, is the Minister going to do with the one volunteer in the constituency of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party?

Mr. Head: We have reviewed the whole scheme, and all I can say is that the hon. Member is not doing the Home Guard or anybody else any good by trying to sabotage it.

Mr. Shinwell: If a reasonable question is addressed to the right hon. Gentleman on a matter in which it is obvious that the right hon. Gentleman has failed to implement the promise he made, is there any reason why he should lose his temper?

Mr. Head: I have not lost my temper. All I said was that, as announced in some detail, the scheme has been reviewed, and new measures have been introduced.

Sir W. Darling: Would my right hon. Friend consider that the addition to the establishment of a limited number of education officers would help in the recruitment of the Home Guard?

Mr. Swingler: May I ask the Minister on what evidence he has alleged that hon. Members of the Opposition have sabotaged this organisation, and, if he has no evidence to prove it, will he withdraw?

Mr. Head: I have a great deal of evidence to that effect.

Hon. Members: Oh!

Mr. Shinwell: If the right hon. Gentleman has specific evidence that hon. Members on this side of the House have sabotaged the Home Guard scheme, will he be good enough to make a statement

to the House at the end of Questions, or, alternatively, produce a White Paper giving the facts relating to the statement which he has just made?

Mr. Head: I think the facts are well known to the right hon. Gentleman.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Shinwell: As hon. Members on this side are not aware, and as I certainly am not aware, of the facts to which the right hon. Gentleman has made reference, will he be good enough to furnish the information?

Mr. Head: I will certainly write to the right hon. Gentleman.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Bellenger: On a point of order. May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if the word "sabotage" is a Parliamentary expression when applied to hon. Members of this House, bearing in mind all the meanings attributed to that word during the war?

Mr. Speaker: I must confess that I am not provided with adequate and clear definitions of the term "sabotage," and I cannot say whether it is in order or not; but, if it does imply any evil intent or undisclosed and unavowed motive on the part of hon. Members, it would not be in order.

Mr. Head: Further to that point of order, may I say that if, by that word, I suggested disloyalty in any way, I withdraw it, unreservedly. The sense in which I used the word was to impede, and not in any way to be disloyal.

Mr. Strachey: This is a serious charge that has been made. [Interruption.] Of course it is a very serious charge. Whether the word "sabotage" is used or not, I suggest that the House will not be satisfied unless an inquiry is made into this matter and the Secretary of State for War produces some evidence to support such a charge, which is deeply resented on this side of the House.

Mr. S. Silverman: Further to that point of order. May I submit to you, Sir, that the alteration of the word "sabotage" to the word "impede" makes no difference whatever, and that the charge was quite clearly one that hon. Members on this side of the House had set to work in order to render abortive an Act of Parliament


passed by this House and now the law of the land? I submit to you, Sir, that such a reflection upon hon. Members has always been held to be completely out of order, and ought to be completely withdrawn.

Mr. Speaker: I did not understand it in that sense. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to refer to the fact that there was a difference of opinion as to the advisability of proceeding with the Home Guard. If it only means that, it is in order, although it is a matter of debate.

Mr. Attlee: Surely, Mr. Speaker, there is a distinction when Members in the course of their duty suggest that a scheme which is being put forward is unlikely to be successful and is ill-timed. That is one thing. It is quite another to accuse hon. Members, when that scheme has been brought in, of deliberately impeding it. That is what the right hon. Gentleman did.

Mr. Speaker: I think that is so, but if the right hon. Gentleman meant it in that sense I think he would probably like to withdraw it.

Mr. Head: If I have given an entirely false impression. I would, of course, like to withdraw. My point about the scheme is that hon. Members opposite have constantly suggested that the whole scheme is a waste of time.

Mr. S. Silverman: So it is.

Mr. Head: There you are. The only point in my remarks is that in the case of men who have either joined or who are thinking of joining, it does impede the scheme for a large section of the House to say that it is a waste of time.

Mr. Silverman: On a point of order. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the right hon. Gentleman has not begun to understand the ground of complaint. It is certainly the case that a great many Members of the House, indeed practically all Members on this side of the House, thought from the beginning that the scheme was misconceived, said so, and opposed it. But what the right hon. Gentleman is saying is that, since it became the law of the land, active measures have been taken by hon. Members on this side of the House to render an Act

of Parliament abortive. If he did not mean that by his use of the words "sabotage" or "impede," then he was merely wasting the time of the House by using entirely meaningless language.

Mr. Speaker: I think the right hon. Gentleman has now explained what he meant. As to the different meanings that can be placed on these words, that is really a matter for the House and not for me.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for War how much expenditure he has incurred on the Home Guard to date.

Mr. Head: The expenditure from the start of the scheme to date, has been about £835,000.

Mr. Hughes: Can the Minister tell us if the figures for Ayrshire for recruitment into the Home Guard are better than those for Perthshire, and if he attributes that fact to "sabotage" or any other reason in Perthshire?

Mr. Head: Not without notice.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman not regard it as an improper supplementary question if I ask him whether the vast sum of money that has been expended will ultimately be justified by the numbers obtained?

Mr. Head: In my opinion it will be fully justified by the time the scheme is finished.

Supplementary Estimate

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for War for what detailed reasons he anticipates the necessity of a Supplementary Estimate for the Army.

Mr. Head: Two important factors are extra expenditure resulting from the accelerated orders for textiles and increased expenditure on pay resulting from improved regular recruiting. I shall give the detailed reasons when I present the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Swingler: If the Minister would pause to consider this matter courteously, is he aware that some of his supporters are endeavouring to "impede" him, if not to "sabotage" him, in that they think there should be more economy in his Department? Will he pay attention to


the pressure now being put upon him to decrease the expenditure of his Department instead of increasing it?

Army Medical Service

Mr. Fenner Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for War what steps he is taking to ensure adequate supervision in the Army Medical Service.

Mr. Head: Measures to improve the supply of experienced medical officers are under urgent consideration.

Mr. Brockway: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when I drew the attention of his Department to a very serious case of medical neglect, the Under-Secretary of State for War replied by letter on 28th July as follows:
We have to accept over 900 young and inexperienced National Service medical officers whose work it is impossible adequately to supervise with the relatively small numbers of Regular service medical officers now available, and as a result I am afraid it is inevitable that from time to time complaints of this nature will rise.
Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that my hands are full of letters which have come from all over the country describing such absence of proper medical treatment?

Mr. Head: The young National Service doctors have done a very good job, and I would like to pay a tribute to them. I think the supervision is being carried out extremely well with the numbers available, though we are anxious to increase them.

Far East Prisoners of War (Treatment)

Colonel J. H. Harrison: asked the Secretary of State for War what authoritative news he now has of how British prisoners of war are being treated in the Far East.

Mr. Head: I very much regret that I can add nothing to my replies to my hon. and gallant Friend on 28th October, and to the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) on 14th October this year.

Colonel Harrison: Will my right hon. Friend do his utmost to bring to an end this disgraceful state of affairs and to correct a supplementary reply given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, in which he said that as far as he knew our prisoners are well treated,

because this has been taken up by Communist organs in this country? Would he further consult his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, whose views on prisoners of war 50 years ago are well known, to bring this state of affairs to an end?

Mr. Head: Yes, I will bear it in mind.

Mr. Shinwell: Would it not be useful if the right hon. Gentleman could inform the House whether British prisoners of war in the Far East are being permitted to write to their relatives at home? I understand that is the position.

Mr. Head: Yes, Sir, I informed the House quite recently that they are allowed to write, and some 10,000 letters have been received in this country.

Mr. Driberg: Is it not the case that, so far as is known, the treatment is good, and if such is the case, is it not undesirable to give an impression which may only cause extra anxiety and distress to relatives, when, in fact, such evidence as there is is to the contrary?

Mr. Head: Yes, Sir, I have no information that British prisoners are being treated badly.

Z and G Reservists (Call-Up)

Mr. Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for War what progress has been made in the creation of sufficient teams and the testing of mobilisation machinery; and how far this will affect the Z call-up in 1953.

Brigadier Peto: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will now make a statement with regard to the call-up of reservists for training next year, 1953.

Mr. Head: During the past two years the Army has called up over 300,000 men. This has enabled us to bring men together in most of the units which will be needed in the early stages of mobilisation and to tide over the period while the Territorial Army was filling up with National Service men. By this means and through the increasing numbers of National Service men now in the Territorial Army, its strength and state of preparedness have greatly improved.
It is not proposed to call up any Army Z reservists for training in 1953. My


noble Friend has asked me to announce at the same time that he does not propose to ask for authority to call up R.A.F. G reservists.
I would take this opportunity of expressing the appreciation of Her Majesty's Government of the way in which the vast majority of these reservists have responded; and also of the hard work of the officers and other ranks of the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces in handling this extra responsibility.

Mr. Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend take note that this thoroughly intelligent appreciation of the situation will give great satisfaction in every quarter?

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: Will my right hon. Friend say what steps he proposes to take to fill up the gaps in the tail of the Army of B.A.O.R.?

Mr. Head: A good many of these men have already been called up to the tail.

Korea and Malaya (N.A.A.F.I. Prices)

Brigadier Clarke: asked the Secretary of State for War if he will ensure that the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes do not raise the price of cups of tea to Service men on active service, in view of the fact that labour, fuel, light and other overheads should be cheap in Korea and Malaya.

Mr. Head: The Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes' operating costs in these distant theatres are not low. A cup of tea in Korea will cost 2d. and, I am informed, costs 4d. at a railway station in this country.

Brigadier Clarke: Does my right hon. Friend realise that I am not interested in the cost of tea in railway stations? These men are fighting for us, and I think everything should be done to give them their tea as cheaply as possible?

Coronation (Territorial Army)

Mr. Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will ensure that the claims of the Territorial Army to be represented in the Coronation ceremonies will be carefully considered.

Mr. Head: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the Territorial man is continuously told that he is twice a citizen, and that therefore it would be most unfortunate if he were given the impression that he is regarded as half a soldier?

Mr. Head: Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — SMALL BUSINESSES (DISABILITIES)

Miss Ward: asked the Prime Minister if the Government will have an inquiry made, Department by Department, into the legislative and administrative disabilities suffered by the small business man and woman with a view to relieving them from the disadvantages they operate under.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill): I presume that the hon. Lady is referring to a number of individual matters on which she has written to me. I am having these looked into by the appropriate Departments.

Miss Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the satisfaction that that will give? [Laughter.] May I have silence, Mr. Speaker, in order that I might ask my supplementary question?

Mr. Churchill: I am advised that over the country as a whole—[Interruption.] I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I thought you had called Question No. 46.

Mr. Speaker: I think that the hon. Lady had better repeat her supplementary question.

Miss Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the satisfaction his answer will give, having regard to the fact that during the Socialists' term of office they did everything they possibly could to "down" the small man?

Mr. Speaker: That seems to be conveying information rather than asking for it.

Mr. Swingler: On a point of order. In view of the fact that the Prime Minister very courteously began to give an answer to my Question No. 46, may I have the rest of it?

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Griffiths.

KENYA (SITUATION)

Mr. J. Griffiths: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any statement to make on the situation in Kenya.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Oliver Lyttelton): Yes, Sir. The situation in Kenya has to some extent changed for the worse since I last made a statement in the House. It is clear that the Government of Kenya will be faced with serious trouble in certain localities for some time to come. There are some encouraging features, however, showing that although the disturbances are more serious they are also more localised. Accordingly, large-scale sweeps by troops and police are being abandoned, save in exceptional circumstances. In Nyeri, Kikuyu Home Guards are being successfully formed for four or five locations.
There have been several serious incidents, including the stealing of weapons, and some members of Mau Mau are becoming more violent. The Governor proposes to concentrate action in areas where serious crime or Mau Mau meetings occur. This will involve the distasteful but necessary procedure of punishment of certain defined areas and the area of punishment will be closely restricted.
Stock or bicycles and other transport will be seized if the inhabitants fail to take reasonable steps to prevent crime committed in their locality. In the light of a report or other information the Governor will decide whether a forfeiture order applying to all or only part of the seized property should be made. Before coming to his decision he will have regard to the extent of the co-operation of the people of the area with the police since the commission of the crime.
During the weekend the following serious incidents occurred:
1. News was received from a small police patrol that a meeting at Kilawara was planning to resist the establishment of a police post. Accordingly a party of three European officers and 23 Askaris left Thika Police Station to investigate. They found 2,000 Kikuyu being addressed by a young man who was inciting them to violence. He was arrested and he shouted to the crowd to release him. In

face of warnings the crowd rushed at the police party. Two shots were fired into the ground. The crowd fell to the ground but quickly got up and rushed shouting at the police. A third warning was given and the police did not fire until the crowd were less than 10 yards from the nearest policeman. The Governor reported yesterday that 15 Africans had been killed and 29 wounded.
2. A gang of Kikuyu, armed with long knives, burst into a European farm near Thompson's Falls and attacked the farmer and his wife, named Meiklejohn. He has since died and she is in a dangerous condition.
3. Another European farm was entered in the same area when the owners were absent. Three rifles, a shot-gun and 250 rounds of assorted ammunition were stolen.
4. In Fort Hall district, two tribal policemen were murdered.
5. In South Nyeri five Africans supposed to have given information to the police were murdered.
6. A gang of 10 or more Kikuyu attacked two Asian shopkeepers near Thompson's Falls shouting "We are the Mau Mau." The Asians fired on them and drove them off.
One of the disturbing features of recent incidents has been the theft of arms and ammunition. Although trouble may be less widespread in future, it is likely to be more serious when it does occur. The Kenya Government have already modified their plans to meet the changing situation and I am in consultation with the Governor about further steps which may be taken.
I might add that I will keep the House informed as I receive reports of sufficient importance.

Mr. Griffiths: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the House and, I think, the country are deeply disturbed at the increasing gravity of the situation in Kenya? Whilst from the beginning we have given the Government our fullest support in any steps that are required to suppress Mau Mau, we are deeply concerned at the trends of present policy. Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to hold or arrange for the holding of an independent inquiry into the events at


Kirawara? That has been done on previous occasions. Will he consider that?
Secondly, may I ask whether the present trend of policy is not fraught with the danger of converting the whole of the Kikuyu people into our enemies? From the very beginning the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and indeed the Government of Kenya, the Governor and spokesmen have indicated that the large majority of Africans were loyal and that this was a movement of a section of the African people designed as much for attacking loyal Africans as others. Are we not in danger of converting the whole of these people in the Kikuyu into our enemies? Will the right hon. Gentleman seriously consider whether these measures which the Government and the Governor are now taking will have the effect of creating in Kenya a whole people who will be resentfully against us in the future?
Furthermore, may I ask whether the Secretary of State has now considered the suggestion which I made, and which I think met with approval in all parts of the House, that an all-party delegation should proceed forthwith to Kenya to investigate what is taking place and report to the House? May I also ask whether he is now in a position to complete the Royal Commission, the appointment of which was announced several months ago, which we have urged and which should be completed at once and proceed to its task?

Mr. Lyttelton: On the first matter mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, I will, of course, consider any suggestion that he puts forward. We must be very careful in setting up inquiries into police action to avoid giving the impression that we are not behind what is taking place. As far as I am informed—and I think that I have complete information—the police could have taken no other action than that which they did take, and I am very anxious to avoid any suggestion—as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is—of back-seat driving in these matters.
I think that the second question asked by the right hon. Gentleman concerned the danger in these circumstances of getting the whole of the Kikuyu, numbering about one million, against us. Quite frankly, that, of course, is a danger in the suppression of violence which may

always arise and it would be simply not candid of me if I did not say that it was a danger. At the same time, I see no alternative but to put down as ruthlessly as is necessary, and no more ruthlessly than is necessary, crimes against law and order. I said that any punishment that took place must be strictly localised to the place where the crime has occurred and where co-operation by a small group of inhabitants has not been forthcoming, and that we should avoid communal punishment on a larger scale.
On the last question asked by the right hon. Gentleman about a delegation and the Commission, I shall be answering a Question tomorrow on that subject, but I think that it would be fair to say to the right hon. Gentleman that my opinion is that an all-party delegation at this moment and in the present state of the Colony would not be a suitable measure to take. That is not to say that in other circumstances I would not give it sympathetic consideration. With regard to the Royal Commission, we are proceeding with all the speed that we can to get the members appointed, and one or two have already accepted, but this is a question of communication and not of any delay by the Government.

Mr. Griffiths: I very much regret that the Secretary of State has said that he is turning down the suggestion that I made about an all-party delegation. I shall take opportunities of raising that again. May I ask whether that does not make it imperative that there should be an independent inquiry into the events that happened on Sunday? May I ask the right hon. Gentleman further why the Government in Kenya do not take full advantage, as it seems to us they are not taking, of the offer of the moderate African leaders to assist them in this matter?

Mr. Lyttelton: This is quite another question. On the first matter, which the right hon. Gentleman has raised again, I cannot go further at this moment than to say that I will, of course, consider with the greatest earnestness and attention his suggestion, of which I have just heard for the first time, but there are other aspects of this question to which he can hardly expect me to reply at a moment's notice. I cannot go further than say that I will consider his suggestion. We have to be very careful not to


give the impression, which I am sure is not a correct one, that we do not support the police in the exercise of their duty.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: Will the right hon. Gentleman place in the Library copies of the new Defence Regulations which have been promulgated today and to which he has referred in his answer? May I ask him whether those Defence Regulations enable all the property of the people in a particular area to be confiscated—not only the cattle, but personal articles like bicycles—and whether in other areas persons may be evicted from their homes? Does he not feel that that kind of action, while it may suppress Mau Mau organisations, is likely only to spread the spirit of Mau Mau among the Kikuyu people?

Mr. Lyttelton: I will go this far—which is further than the hon. Member asks—and say that all these Defence Regulations of a special nature, which come under the emergency powers of the Kenya Government, will be placed in the Library as they are received. I cannot answer the remainder of that question without having seen the legislation in detail, but I would add that in this dangerous situation it is true that we run the risk of alienating those who are sympathetic to us now, and that is inherent in all these situations and is a danger against which, so far as is humanly possible, we must guard.

Mr. T. Reid: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when troubles like this occur in Colonies, it is of the greatest importance to send out a Commission to investigate real and imaginary grievances? May I ask whether the delay in appointing the Commission is due to the fact that the members are not to be paid?

Mr. Lyttelton: No, I do not think that is so. The gentlemen who are being asked are spread fairly widely over the world, and since the chairman has been appointed I have used every expedition that I could to get replies. I think only three have so far consented to join, and I am without a reply from the others, but I am pushing on as quickly as I can.

Mr. Alport: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) does not entirely represent the views of the House on

the particular point which he raised, and that there is considerable opposition on this side of the House to the proposal which he made on an earlier occasion? Does my right hon. Friend not feel that that point should be made clear?

Mr. Lyttelton: Any views which the right hon. Gentleman, my predecessor in this Office, puts forward from that Box will be studied with the greatest earnestness and consideration.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does not the Minister agree that one of the first things to be done in Kenya is to establish confidence in British law and justice, and does he not think that that would be best achieved by sending out at the earliest possible moment an all-party delegation such as my right hon. Friend has suggested?

Mr. Lyttelton: No, Sir. The first necessity of re-establishing confidence in British law and order is to see that the witnesses of crimes who wish to come forward are not intimidated by those who are instigating these crimes.

Mr. Baldwin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the speeches made in this House during the last 10 days will still further inflame the very delicate position in Kenya at the moment, and will he consider having some curb, in some way or another, put upon speeches—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and Questions which will lead to the death of innocent people in Kenya?

Mr. Lyttelton: No doubt when different opinions are expressed there are some disadvantages in having them expressed. On the other hand, the advantages of free speech very greatly outweigh those disadvantages.

Mr. Driberg: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his rather cautious repudiation of that disgraceful suggestion by the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin), which almost amounted to a breach of Privilege, may I ask him, on the question of the Royal Commission, whether he has invited any Africans to serve on it?

Mr. Lyttelton: I should have preferred to answer that question when I had a reply, but since the hon. Member puts it straight at me, the answer is, yes.

Mr. Fernyhough: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some of us can never in any circumstances condone a policy of collective punishment, as it is un-Christian and immoral, it savours of Nazism and defeats the end which it attempts to achieve?

Mr. Lyttelton: The hon. Member has indulged in the not uncommon practice of answering his own question.

Mr. Wigg: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House the circumstances in which 1,000 of the 3,000 head of cattle, which were seized last week as a communal punishment, have died, and whether their death has been brought about as an act of deliberate policy or merely through neglect?

Mr. Lyttelton: I have no information on the subject. I will obtain it and will make it known to the hon. Member if he puts a Question on the Paper, or by other means, but I can assure him that the 1,000 cattle have not been destroyed as an act of policy.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under the provisions of Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely:
The serious disturbances which occurred at Kirawara in Kenya on Sunday last in which 21 Africans are believed to have been killed and others injured.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman has asked for leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under the provisions of Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
The serious disturbances which occurred at Kirawara in Kenya on Sunday last in which 21 Africans are believed to have been killed and others injured.
I know no more than other Members of the House what happened there, but from the statement that I heard from the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon it appears to be one in a continuous series of incidents, and I cannot think that that would come within the Standing Order It is not a definite matter in that sense, but is connected with so many others.

Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate that there has been for some weeks a state of emergency in Kenya which we have discussed

as a general problem in this House, but this is the most serious incident that has occurred since the emergency began. Would you not consider, Mr. Speaker, that the disturbances at Kirawara on Sunday are sufficiently serious and urgent to warrant our asking for the Adjournment of the House?

Mr. Hector Hughes: Surely there is no antithesis between continuity and definiteness? A matter may be definite and of urgent public importance and yet it may be continuing. A house may be on fire and it may be definite and urgent and continuing. Surely there is no true antithesis there?

Mr. Speaker: I think there is in this case. A series of incidents has been narrated to us by right hon. Gentlemen on both sides. It seems to me that they are part of one story and the proper course for the House would be to arrange an early occasion, if it could, to debate the whole of the Kenya situation.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: Does your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, mean that since what is happening in Kenya is a continuing story, no particular incident, however serious it may be, can be the subject of a Motion for the Adjournment of the House?

Mr. Speaker: I am very glad that the hon. Member has asked that question. I would not like that impression to be created. I have to form my own opinion and from what I have heard this afternoon it would appear to me that all these incidents are connected. Therefore, the proper course to adopt to get a fair decision from the House would be to have a debate wide enough in scope to consider the whole matter.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: In that case I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House on a wide basis which will include the other subjects. I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely:
The failure of the Government to prevent acts of violence by Africans against Europeans and the shooting of 20 Africans and the wounding of 27 others in a clash with the police on 23rd November last.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member begs leave to move the Adjournment of the


House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely:
The failure of the Government to prevent acts of violence by Africans against Europeans and the shooting of 20 Africans and the wounding of 27 others in a clash with the police on 23rd November last.
That is not definite enough for the purposes of the Standing Order. I have expressed my Ruling that the proper way to deal with this matter is to have a debate upon it free from the trammels of the Standing Order. It seems to me that all these matters are related and that the House should arrange an early opportunity, if it can, for a debate on this serious situation.

Mr. S. Silverman: On the point whether the fact that these events are continuous removes the element of definiteness which the Standing Order requires, you will no doubt recall that in the old days, when there was a corresponding continuous state of affairs in Ireland, there were, nevertheless, numerous occasions when particular incidents arising out of that continuous series of events were held to be proper subjects for special Adjournment debates under this Standing Order. In view of that parallel, is not there room for reconsidering your Ruling?

Mr. Bowles: I can recall two precedents, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition raised this matter in 1936 because of the failure of the Government—the same point as that which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway)—to take certain steps in the Spanish War. I raised a similar matter in 1944 on the failure of the Government to take certain steps to prevent Transport Command accidents. I beg you to realise that those precedents are well remembered by Members of this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) also referred to the Irish troubles. Therefore, with great respect, I suggest that your Ruling seems to be slightly ill-founded so far as precedents are concerned.

Mr. J. Hudson: Is it not the case that the events at Amritsar were debated on a Motion to adjourn the House similar to the one now being discussed? The events at Amritsar were in continuance

of other incidents which took place at that period. As the Motion was then allowed, is it not fair to ask that it should also be allowed on this occasion?

Mr. Attlee: May I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that while we must guard against abuse of the use of this Standing Order, it is essential that its use should be guarded in proper cases. I find it a little difficult to understand why, because there is a continuing series of events, if some particular event comes into prominence it should not be raised. If that is so, it seems to me that at any time when there were disturbances in the Colonies, Ireland, or anywhere else—or even an industrial dispute like that at Tonypandy—one would be precluded from raising one particular issue because of the continuance of the trouble.
I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that it is important to preserve the rights of this House with regard to raising particular incidents.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill): On a point of order. Am I not right in understanding that you have given your Ruling on this matter? Is it in accordance with the practice, procedure and interests of the House that your Ruling, when given on the highly technical question of the Adjournment of the House should be the subject of prolonged discussion?

Mr. Attlee: Further to that point of order. Is it not within your recollection, Mr. Speaker, that on a number of occasions when this question has been put forward it has always been possible to submit reasons to Mr. Speaker for his consideration without in any way suggesting that we are controverting his Ruling?

Mr. Clement Davies: As I understood the right hon. Gentleman, he began his statement by saying that the situation had worsened. There had been a point up to which the authorities had been able to deal with the situation, but now there was a worsening, and new and more drastic steps would have to be taken. That would tend to show that something fresh has happened which may require immediate consideration by this House.

The Prime Minister: Might I suggest that it would be better for a debate to be arranged through the usual channels instead of on a precise, specific mattes


of this kind? The usual channels can be a medium for arriving at an occasion when a debate on the whole situation in Kenya can take place and—though this is hardly relevant and I ask the indulgence of the House—is it not really dangerous at this critical moment to do anything which weakens the confidence of the handful of Europeans in the discharge of their duty, upon which the prevention, perhaps, of the massacre of large numbers of white people depends?

Mr. J. Griffiths: In reply to the Prime Minister, may I say that if he had been here during the previous debates we have had upon this subject he would have agreed that we have shown a sense of responsibility that might have been followed in other parts of the House. We all hope that there will not be any more serious disturbances in Kenya, but since this is a continuing situation and today or tomorrow an event may occur which gives rise to a very serious situation, am I to understand that you would then rule that it would not be permissible to move the Adjournment of the House, however serious that particular event might be?

Mr. Speaker: Most certainly not.

Mr. Snow: May I underline something that was said by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), that this is a new departure in Government policy? "The use of as much ruthlessness as is necessary" were, I think, the words of the Colonial Secretary; is not this a new policy deserving of the consideration of the House?

Mr. Speaker: I have listened to the discussion with considerable interest. Of course, I had not heard the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary until he made it and I had to make up my mind on the points as they were submitted to me. It seems to me that we have already started a debate on this matter. I have reconsidered what I said, and I think the proper course would be for me to ask whether the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) and the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) have the support of the House.
The pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than

Forty Members having accordingly risen, the Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on definite matter of urgent public importance), until Seven o'clock this evening.

Orders of the Day — IRON AND STEEL BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.2 p.m.

The Minister of Supply (Mr. Duncan Sandys): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The Government proposals for the future of the iron and steel industry were set out in the White Paper which was published last July, and I explained them very fully in the debate which we had upon it a few weeks ago. I am sure, therefore, that the House would not wish me to go over the same ground in detail today. I propose, therefore, to concentrate my remarks upon the broad aims, objectives and principles of the Bill and to show the advantages it will offer over the present system.
This Bill has two main objectives. The first is to establish a comprehensive system of public supervision embracing the whole iron and steel industry, and so bring to an end the extremely harmful split created by the 1949 Act. The second is to restore independence, initiative and financial responsibility to the companies and so ensure that they have the strongest incentives to produce as cheaply and efficiently as possible.
In short, we seek to preserve the stimulus of private enterprise, subject to the safeguards of public supervision. This policy has been consistently advocated by the Conservative Party for years past. Our outlook was very well summed up by my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary in a debate in this House as far back as 1946, when he said that the companies should be allowed to spend their own money, run their own business and take their own risks, but should be subject to such amount of Government supervision as will secure that the national interest and that of the steel industry march together in harmony. That is precisely what this Bill sets out to do.
Even hon. Members opposite have at times felt obliged to recognise that free enterprise has a contribution to make to the vitality and efficiency of industry. In fact, the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), when he was commending his steel nationalisation Bill to the House on Second Reading, claimed as a point in its favour that it would
combine all that is best in private enterprise with public ownership.
What he did not seem to appreciate was that you cannot combine private enterprise with monopolistic public ownership any more than you can mix fire with water. By removing from the individual companies real financial responsibility and incentives, State ownership quenches the very spirit of private initiative.
On the same occasion the right hon. Gentleman went on to say rather ingenuously:
we propose to keep intact the identity of the individual concerns. … Indeed, on the morning of Vesting Day the only difference for them will be that the ownership of the securities has changed hands."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th November, 1948; Vol. 458, c. 60–63.]
But of course it makes all the difference in the world for the ownership of the companies to change from the hands of thousands of separate shareholders into the single hand of a State monopoly. By retaining the brass nameplates of the companies, it may be possible to keep up the appearance but not the reality of private enterprise. The facade of separate management may for a while be preserved, but let us make no mistake: financial control by the State Corporation carries with it control of the policy of the companies and must progressively stifle their individual initiative and their sense of responsibility.
I think it is common ground between us, on both sides of the House, that some measure of public supervision and control is necessary in the iron and steel industry. The main question is whether that necessary supervision and control can be obtained without State ownership.

Mr. Frederick Lee: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why public supervision is necessary?

Mr. Sandys: I thought the hon. Gentleman shared that view.

Mr. Lee: I do, but I should like to hear the right hon. Gentleman's reasons.

Mr. Sandys: If we are agreed, I do not propose to pursue the matter. In the debate on the White Paper the other day, the advocates of nationalisation invariably started from the assumption that it is impossible to protect the public interest except through public ownership. We on this side of the House challenge that assumption. We maintain that the effectiveness of public supervision has nothing whatever to do with the question of ownership. It can be made equally, if not more, effective under conditions of private enterprise.

Mr. Wilfred Fienburgh: Nonsense.

Mr. Sandys: The hon. Gentleman says "Nonsense"; if hon. Members opposite question what I have said, I ask them to compare the safeguards for the public interest provided under the 1949 Act with those provided by this Bill and to consider quite objectively which are the more effective.

Mr. Fienburgh: In that case, why is the right hon. Gentleman proposing in his Bill to do away altogether with the Iron and Steel Consumers' Council?

Mr. Sandys: I was going on to compare the two systems, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman will give me the opportunity to do so.
There are three fields in which some measure of public supervision is necessary: prices, development, and raw materials. Let us take prices first. Can it really be said that it is necessary for the State to own the steel works in order to prevent excessive prices from being charged? The history of the industry itself provides the answer. Nationalisation has been operating for about 20 months, yet iron and steel prices have been under effective public supervision for no less than 20 years. I would say that of all the various methods of control adopted at different times, the one provided by the 1949 Act is by far the least efficient.
If prices are to be controlled, it is quite obvious that the control must apply to all products of the same kind irrespective of who makes them. But that is just what the Corporation cannot do; for it has no power to control the prices charged by any company that it does not own. In order to control iron and steel prices effectively through ownership, one would have to nationalise hundreds more


companies in many other industries. This, in turn, would no doubt create further anomalies and a call for further nationalisation until, step by step, one had nationalised almost the whole of our economy.
Public ownership, is, I submit to the House, the most unpractical and the most cumbersome method of exercising public control that has ever been devised. How much simpler and how much more straightforward it is to entrust this task to a Board such as we now propose whose authority is defined in terms of a list of specific products, irrespective of the ownership of the companies that make them.
Much the same difficulty arises over raw materials. Here again, we see the grave disadvantages of the split in the industry created by the 1949 Act, and, above all, the absence of any co-ordinating machinery. Problems of material supplies inevitably raise issues which affect both the nationalised and the privately-owned companies. These require to be dealt with by a body which is able to take an objective view over the whole industry. Since the Corporation is not in a position to do that, the task of co-ordination falls upon the Government.
For example, it was necessary for me a few months ago to reconcile differences between steel makers and founders on the question of the distribution of pig iron and coke. This type of industrial problem should, in our opinion, not have to be referred in the first instance to the Government. However, this will, I am glad to say, be to a large extent remedied when the new Board is set up.
I turn now to the question of development. The right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison)—I am sorry to see he is not in his place today—complained that we were giving the Board negative, destructive bureaucratic powers of veto. One hon. Member opposite said that the steel industry was being put into the clammy clasp of my dead hand. That was the charming expression used by the hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu).
But these arguments and criticisms come strangely from the party opposite, who were responsible for the 1949 Act, which gave to the Corporation, as the sole shareholder, unrestricted control over the affairs of every nationalised company. We, on the other hand, are deliberately

limiting the powers of the intervention of the Board to cases in which a major scheme might seriously prejudice the balanced development of the industry.
In addition, we are providing two important safeguards. The first is that the Board must consult the trade associations representing the branch of the industry concerned before exercising its powers—even before exercising its powers to call for the submission of schemes. The second is the right of appeal from the Board's decision to the Government. In short, my reply to the charge of bureaucracy is that the carefully defined powers with which we are providing the Board are the bare minimum necessary to ensure balanced development of the industry and to avoid waste of national resources on a large scale.
The party opposite have also criticised this Bill for not providing adequate positive powers of development. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall said that we were providing a brake but no accelerator. In my opinion, too much emphasis has been put on this question of positive powers. The real power of the Board will depend not on its right to give orders, but on its ability to lead and to persuade. The Board will have the duty of keeping itself informed about the industry's plans for expansion and modernisation, and of satisfying itself that they are adequate.
Personally, I have little doubt that normally the plans prepared by the companies on their own initiative will be sufficient to meet any forseeable demands for iron and steel. But should the Board, at any time, consider that more is required, it will, under Clause 4 of the Bill, discuss the matter with the industry. I believe that those discussions, to which we attach the greatest importance, will almost always result either in the Board's persuading the industry to carry out the desired expansion or in the industry's convincing the Board that its existing development plans are adequate.
It is, of course, true that, in the rare case where a difference of opinion persists, the Board will have no power to order the carrying out of a development scheme which the industry considers to be economically unsound. The Board will, however, have the right to report the matter to the Government, who are, by this Bill, given the power which does not exist at present, to provide


additional capacity if the national interest requires it.
One would think, by the way hon. Members opposite talk, that nationalisation had somehow ensured that the steel industry could be compelled to carry out uneconomic and unprofitable development schemes. The Corporation, as the sole shareholder, can, of course, order its companies to carry out any unprofitable developments if it so wishes; but is it likely to do so? It is, in my opinion, highly improbable that the Corporation would be prepared to invest large sums of money—and we are talking in terms of schemes involving tens of millions of pounds—in development projects and expansions which are expected to show a loss. Nor must we forget that the 1949 Act laid upon the Corporation an obligation to pay its way. Losses incurred on unprofitable ventures would, therefore, have to be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.
Now, I am not suggesting that the Corporation would be restrictive in its outlook; but merely that, with its heavy responsibility for the finances of this great industry, it is bound in practice to judge issues of this kind from the standpoint of sound business. That is why I do not believe that in practice the Corporation would to any greater extent than private industry be prepared to embark on uneconomic schemes of expansion, and the 1949 Act provides no power whatsoever to compel the Corporation to do so.
As I have said, I am confident that the industry, in consultation with the Board, can be relied upon to provide the capacity that is needed. I know that is not the view of the party opposite. The right hon. Member for Lewisham, South, in the debate the other day, told us that the late Labour Government had nationalised the steel industry because it was too cautious in its development policy. As evidence of this he quoted figures to show that, between 1937 and 1951, the steel industry in Britain had expanded less rapidly than in America.
I am sure that the last thing the right hon. Gentleman would have wished to do would have been to be unfair to the record of the steel industry under private enterprise. But by including the war years in the period which he chose for his comparison he gave the House, I am

sure inadvertently, a most misleading impression. During the war, when we were cut off from three-quarters of our supplies of iron ore, the expansion of the British steel industry was virtually stopped completely. On the other hand, in the United States the war did not hold up the expansion of the steel industry. In fact, it actively stimulated it—with great advantage to the allied countries.
If then, as I think the House will agree is only fair, we exclude the period of hostilities from the calculation, the British steel industry has no reason to fear comparison with America. In the 20 years between the two wars, the capacity of the American steel industry expanded by about 12 per cent. In Britain, during that same period it increased by no less than 35 per cent.—three times the rate in America. Since the war, despite the inevitable delays in starting again, our rate of expansion has once more been quicker.

Mr. Jack Jones: Hear, hear.

Mr. Sandys: Incidentally, a most misleading statement was made in the party political broadcast the other night. Between 1945 and 1951, the American steelmaking capacity increased rather less than 20 per cent. During the same period the British steel industry expanded over 25 per cent.

Mr. Jones: Hear, hear.

Mr. I. Mikardo: Who has done it?

Mr. Sandys: I am glad to hear that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones) agrees with me. Perhaps he will tell his hon. Friend.

Mr. Mikardo: Would the right hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene?

Mr. Sandys: I am sorry, not just now. I am now trying to deal with these figures.

Mr. Jones: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say that the reason I said, "Hear, hear," was because that was a complete indictment of the statement made from the Opposition at that time, that in the period when we were in power there would be chaos and a lack of expansion.

Mr. Sandys: Evidently we are agreed but for different reasons.

Mr. Jones: Mine is a very good reason.

Mr. Sandys: As I was saying, the Americans expanded 20 per cent. and we expanded 25 per cent. since the war.

Mr. Mikardo: All with public money, or nearly all.

Mr. Sandys: Not at all. I will deal with that in a moment, if I may.

Mr. Austen Albu: Well, the banks' money.

Mr. Sandys: It has not stopped there. Thanks to the expansion which was planned and set on foot at the end of the war under private enterprise, new coke ovens and blast furnaces are now coming into operation, and I am glad to be able to tell the House that the industry confidently expects that next year's steel output will be about one million ingot tons higher than it has ever been before.

Mr. Jones: Hear, hear.

Mr. Sandys: I do not think the hon. Gentleman will claim that that is the result of nationalisation. The reason for the output of the industry increasing at this moment is that the plans made and started long before nationalisation are now coming to fruition.

Mr. Jones: They fructified under Socialism.

Mr. Sandys: The House will, I think, agree that this record of continuous expansion and progress does not fit in very well with the right hon. Gentleman's story that the steel industry had to be nationalised because it was dragging its feet so badly under private enterprise. That was an unfair and an altogether unconvincing excuse to cover up the real reason. As I think we all know, the decision to nationalise the steel industry was taken against the better judgment of many in the Labour Party and in the trade union movement.

Mr. Jones: Which?

Mr. Sandys: As a sop to appease the Left Wing in the House of Commons.

Mr. Fienburgh: Who is the right hon. Gentleman appeasing?

Mr. Sandys: As an act of political appeasement it turned out to be an even greater flop than it has been as an act of industrial policy.
As I have already emphasised, the comprehensive scope of the Board's supervision is, in our opinion, one of the great advantages which the proposals embodied in this Bill offer over the present system.

Mr. Mikardo: Now that the right hon. Gentleman has left his figures, will he give way?

Mr. Sandys: Yes, certainly.

Mr. Mikardo: The right hon. Gentleman has just spent quite a lot of time describing the powers of the Board over the companies in selling prices, in raw material supplies and in development. How does he reconcile that with his having said earlier that the object of the Bill is to restore independence to the private companies?

Mr. M. Follick: He can reconcile anything.

Mr. Sandys: What I said was that we were trying to restore the stimulus of private enterprise coupled with the safeguards of public supervision; that has been our policy throughout.

Mr. Mikardo: Independence.

Mr. Sandys: I was emphasising the importance we attach to the comprehensive scope of the Board's supervision. Instead of public ownership of one part of the industry, there will now be public supervision of the whole. That is why we cannot accept the suggestion which has been made in some quarters that founders should be excluded from the scheme.

Mr. Follick: Why not?

Mr. Sandys: I will explain, if I may. The foundries are an important part of the iron and steel industry. During the war they came under the Iron and Steel Control, and after the war they came under the supervision of the Iron and Steel Board. The founders use the same raw materials as the steel makers; in fact they consume about one-quarter of the total supplies of the country of pig iron and scrap. To ensure that they get their fair share of available materials, it is essential that the founders should be in the club, and, when we come to appoint the new Board, it is our intention to include at least one Member who has foundry experience.
The Council of Iron Foundry Associations, the principal trade association in this industry, whose members together account for about 75 per cent. of the iron foundry production of this country, has throughout expressed its agreement with the Government's policy. Recently, this Council took a vote amongst its members on this question. Although there was not unanimity, the attitude of the Council was endorsed by 11 out of the 15 constituent associations, representing a very large majority, whether we measure it by firms or by output. That was a most decisive vote. Incidentally, it may interest hon. Members opposite to know that the voting system did not have to be altered to produce this result.
I am, of course, aware that misgivings have been expressed by a certain number of firms about the Board's powers over prices and development. There is really nothing new about price control of foundry products. A limited number of them have been price-controlled for over a decade. It is certainly not our object to extend the field. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the new Board would wish to do so. But I understand the anxieties which exist, and if we can remove them, we shall be glad to do so. We are, therefore, prepared to consider, during the Committee stage, methods by which we can restrict the Board's powers to extend the area of price control. In other words, to restrict the Board's price-control powers to the very limited range of products which are at present price-controlled. I think that may allay the anxieties of many who have misgivings on this score.
As for development, the Board will, of course, have a general duty to keep the progress of the industry under review. I should like to emphasise, as it does not seem to be generally understood, that its consent to development plans has to be obtained only in the case of schemes of such magnitude as to affect the balance of the industry. What we have in mind are big expansion schemes in the heavy end of the industry, costing many millions of pounds. It is extremely unlikely that any foundry development scheme will ever be big enough to bring it within the scope of the Board's powers, which are defined by Clause 5 (2 and 3).
I was, therefore, rather surprised to see in a newspaper the other day a letter from an industrialist, whose firm has a tied foundry, in which he said that, if the Bill went through, no founder would be able to put up so much as a wooden bench without first filling in a form. He and others who are so busily mobilising opposition on this question would, I think, be very greatly reassured if they could find time to read the Bill.
I am convinced that the majority of the founders are right in thinking that it is in their best interest to be included in the scheme. On the other hand, I sympathise with those who are anxious to be protected against the gentleman in Whitehall. It is the very essence of this Bill that companies should be free to manage their own affairs with the minimum of control necessary to safeguard the public interest—[An HON. MEMBER: "And their profits."] Therefore, provided that they do not impair the comprehensive scope of the Board's supervision, to which, as I have said, we attach great importance, we shall be glad to consider in Committee Amendments designed to remove genuine doubts or to stop unintended loopholes for bureaucracy.

Mr. George Chetwynd: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether these firms are to be liable to the general levy procedure, and how, if we are to have the Guillotine in the Committee stage, can he guarantee that we shall have adequate discussion of this matter?

Mr. Sandys: I have not heard any announcement about Time-table resolutions.
I come now to the problems involved in returning the companies to private ownership. As the Bill makes clear, we intend to give to the Realisation Agency, subject to Treasury approval, as much latitude as possible to carry out its selling operations as and when it thinks best. It would be wrong for me to say anything this afternoon which might appear to prejudge the decisions of the Agency. There are, however, a number of misunderstandings which I should like to clear up.
The party opposite have repeatedly said that the Agency will only be able to find buyers for the more up-to-date and profitable plants, and that the State will be left holding all the obsolescent works. In


fact, they say that private enterprise will just skim off the cream. But, in the same breath, they accuse us of intending to sell off the steel industry at knockdown prices, regardless of the loss of public money.
These two lines of argument largely cancel one another out. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] They do. If we were really prepared to sell the industry for a song, there would be no difficulty in finding buyers for the whole lot at once. If we have any difficulty in finding buyers, it will be because we shall insist on fair prices—fair to the State and fair to the investors.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall complained that, until the selling operations were completed, the industry would be divided into two classes of companies—State-owned and privately-owned. This is an extraordinary complaint to come from the right hon. Gentleman, considering that his Government were responsible for the 1949 Act, which split the industry in two and that we are trying to unify it again. Supposing that, for a while, a certain number of companies remain in the hands of the Agency, there will be no great harm in that.
The most important and urgent thing, as we see it, is not the sale of the last company but the ending of the present State monopoly in the basic sector of the industry. This will be achieved as soon as a substantial proportion of the companies have been sold and diverse ownership has thus been re-established.
What is more, the split in the industry will become much less marked when the Board has been set up. All iron and steel production, whether carried on by State-owned or privately-owned companies, will then come under the supervision of the Board. This will at once remove one of the more serious weaknesses of the present system, namely, the absence of any co-ordinating machinery embracing the iron and steel industry as a whole.
Another suggestion made by the party opposite is that there will be no money for development. While the companies continue to be owned by the State, it is very probable that there will be difficulty in raising money from outside to finance them. That is why the Bill empowers the

Agency to provide finance for companies whose shares it holds. But we are told—I think an hon. Member opposite told us—that this would be using public funds to create future private profit. All I would say is that any money provided will be on terms satisfactory to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—who is usually able to look after himself—and that the prices at which those shares will eventually be sold will take into account any increased value which may have been created.
The most important consideration as we see it, is that development should not be held up. If we were to neglect any steps, including the necessary financial measures, to ensure the smooth and continuous progress of development, the Opposition would be the first to condemn us, and rightly so.
When the companies are returned to private ownership they will, of course, have to find finance for themselves, as they did before nationalisation. It is estimated that between £50 million and £60 million a year will be needed over the next few years for maintenance and development. A substantial part of this will come from depreciation and ploughed back profits. The balance will have to be found from outside. But I really do not see that this will present an insuperable problem. The steel industry—I take up a point made by an hon. Member earlier—financed its great post-war development and expansion, costing about £320 million, without help from the Government.

Mr. Mikardo: Surely the right hon. Gentleman will not pretend that the steel industry stood on its own feet for capital development when the £50 million issue of the Steel Company of Wales had to be underwritten to the extent of £35 million by a semi-public financial agency?

Mr. Sandys: Not at all; there was no Government money involved in it. If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Finance Corporation for Industry, that still exists and will continue to do so. Other great industries are able to find large sums of money for their development schemes, and there is absolutely no reason why the steel industry should not be able to do the same.
Finally, I should like to say that, in framing this Bill, we have deliberately


adopted a moderate, middle course, not as a compromise solution to a political controversy but as a common sense solution to an industrial problem. The Bill, unlike the 1949 Act, is not based on a political theory but on industrial experience and practice. Our plan is to give statutory form to methods of co-operation between the industry and the Government which have been progressively evolved over the last 20 years. That is a firm foundation on which to build; and it gives us confidence that when the smoke of Parliamentary battle has blown away this Bill will be seen to offer a sound basis for a lasting settlement.

4.46 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: We have listened to an interesting and clearly delivered speech from the Minister of Supply. I think that the House, or at all events a large section of it, will agree with me that his speech was characterised less by argument than by assertion. He made a number of statements in support of his proposals which he did not support with fact or argument. I propose, in the course of my remarks, to deal with some of those assertions.
Many Members of the House will also agree that the Minister's speech was really not a very convincing one. He was labouring a great deal in order to try to make a case, to try to show why the proposals contained in the Bill, which are so obviously subject to criticism from every angle, should be acceptable to this House. The most extraordinary statement he made was at the end of his speech, when he suggested that the proposals in the Bill presented a middle course, after having told us, as is correct, that the purpose of the Bill and its result will be to return this industry to private ownership; and that the Board which is to control it will have as little authority or powers as possible.

Mr. Spencer Summers: As necessary.

Mr. Strauss: The hon. Member says "As necessary." As I hope to show, these powers will be negligible.
This is not a middle course. This is a return to the status before nationalisation. It is putting this basic industry back under private ownership and control, and, from our point of view, is wholly objectionable.
Before entering into the details of the Bill and the principle involved, I wish to make one other comment about the Minister's speech. He told us with some pride that the industry was next year to produce, it is hoped, one million tons more than this year. We are all delighted to know that that is so, but it is really ridiculous for him to suggest that that is because of some virtue inherent in private ownership. It is nothing of the sort.
After the war, when the industry had been unable to develop and extend, a big scheme of development was put forward, was accepted by the Government, and the Government saw to it that priority of national resources should be given to the industry to enable it to expand according to that programme. As we know, the whole of that programme was not completed or even started. It did progress and we did everything we could to help it. It is true that today the industry is expanding, in output and profits, and we are told that it will expand still more next year.
Surely the point is that all this is happening under nationalisation. We do not for a moment claim that this great expansion is due to changes brought about by nationalisation, although I claim that many changes have been brought about which are beneficial. Nevertheless, an industry which is expanding in this remarkable way—a way which justifies the right hon. Gentleman speaking about it with pride—is doing very well. An industry which is doing so very well should not be tinkered about with and upset because of the political views and prejudices of the party in power.

Mr. Sandys: Since the right hon. Gentleman is now joining in the praise of the industry, does he support the view expressed by his right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) that the industry was doing so badly two years ago that it had to be nationalised?

Mr. Strauss: I do not think my right hon. Friend said that at all. I think he said—and I endorse it—that the record of the industry is such, and its importance to our national economy is such, that it is essential to bring it under full public control and authority.
Before I come to the details of the Bill, I want to make quite clear—although I think it is already quite clear—that we on this side of the House are opposed to the Bill in principle because we believe it is contrary to the national interest to transfer this iron and steel industry from public to private ownership. This principle has been argued in the House so often before that I do not intend to take up any time arguing it again today. I must, however, say this. In our view it is indefensible for the control of this industry—on which depends our economy, the fate of townships and the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of employees—to rest in the hands of people with no public responsibility.
For example, when the people of Jarrow were suffering from widespread unemployment and all the demoralisation and malnutrition which goes with it, it was morally and socially wrong that a decision as to whether a new steel works should be built there should have been made by directors of other steel works responsible only to their shareholders rather than by the Government of the day, responsible to Parliament. We believe that it is equally wrong that people with no public responsibility should have the power to decide where and when steel works are to be closed and whole communities rendered derelict. It is wrong that decisions on such matters should be dictated by private profit interests.
It is our belief, also, that the defects of our iron and steel industry—and they are serious—can only be removed through common ownership of all the large plants. These defects have been clearly stated in the conclusions of the Iron and Steel Team of the Anglo-American Council for Productivity. They report at considerable length that in their view in this country there is too great a dispersal of production facilities and that the production units are too small.
We consider, and I think it is plain, that these defects cannot be removed without eliminating the conflicting vested interests of the companies concerned, large and small. Only then can reorganisation take place based on national plans, unhindered by sectional obstruction. That, of course, means single ownership and I think it is accepted, even on the other side of the House, that a single ownership of this great industry

is only tolerable under full Parliamentary control.
Next, we say that de-nationalisation, which is bound to disturb and dislocate this industry, cannot possibly be justified without evidence to show that the industry has in some way suffered from nationalisation. No such evidence has been produced in any debate on this industry—it has not been produced by the Minister of Supply today—for the simple reason that there is no such evidence. On the contrary, the industry, as we know, is flourishing. Its production is greater than ever; it will be greater, we are told, next year. Its profits are greater than ever and it is in a more prosperous condition than at any time in its history. So far from nationalisation having damaged the industry, I have on several occasions recounted to the House facts showing how the industry has benefited already—in small ways it is true but in significant ways—from nationalisation, and these facts no one has denied.
Moreover, the iron and steel industry has adapted itself to the new machinery established by the nationalisation Act. That machinery is working well. I believe, and I do not say this without some knowledge of the industry and those who work in it, that, by and large, managements—relieved, perhaps to find that the tiresome interference in their affairs which they were told by Conservative spokesmen would follow nationalisation has not happened—are content with the new set-up. In any case, I am certain that most of them would far rather that the industry should be left in peace than that it should suffer from the upsetting and long-term uncertainty that will follow the enactment of this de-nationalisation Bill.
It is for these reasons that we oppose the Bill in principle irrespective of the demerits of the detailed provisions in it, which are many, and we say that the Government, in bringing it forward, are sacrificing the true interests of the iron and steel industry to please their political supporters.
I now want to consider some of those detailed provisions. To carry out the intentions of the Government, as we have been told today, it is proposed to set up two bodies, an agency for selling the companies to private owners and a Board to


provide, in the words of the White Paper, a measure of adequate supervision for the industry. The selling agency is to be called by the clumsy name of the Iron and Steel Holding and Realisation Agency. I should have thought it would be much simpler just to call it "The Sellout Agency." It is to be appointed by the Treasury. Curiously, we are not told much, indeed we are not told anything, about its membership or constitution except that it is to consist of six people.
I should like to ask whoever is to reply to the debate to tell us a little more about this agency. Will it consist of Treasury officials only, or in part? Will there be outsiders on it, businessmen, accountants, or anyone actively engaged in the industry? Until we have an answer to these questions, further comment is impossible, except to point out that it is to be entirely responsible to the Treasury. The Board will have such powers as are granted by this Bill and be responsible to the Minister of Supply. This surely will give rise to unlimited confusion.
For example, companies, desirous of undertaking development schemes and wishing to raise large amounts of capital for that purpose, presumably will have to apply both to the Board and to the agency, or maybe to the Minister of Supply and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as well in cases of dispute. That, obviously, is a ridiculous situation. We should like to know how the Government propose, if they have considered this matter at all, to avoid such difficulties as seems to us bound to result from this dual responsibility.
I know that my hon. Friends want to raise a number of points about the disposal of the iron and steel companies. I want to make only one comment on a point discussed to some extent today by the Minister of Supply, but in a way which was wholly unsatisfactory to us. That is the split in the basic section of the industry which will inevitably occur as a result of this selling out scheme. I do not think it has been denied—it was not denied by the Minister today—that there will be great difficulty in selling off these companies. That certainly is accepted in the City and in the entire financial Press.
Is it not, therefore, bound to happen that those units which can be sold will be the profitable, up-to-date and modern ones,

and those which are not profitable but are comparatively inefficient will remain in public hands? That has not been denied.

Mr. Summers: Are we to understand from the argument of the right hon. Member that the up-to-date works are assumed by him to be the most profitable?

Mr. Strauss: Broadly speaking, but not necessarily, of course. If the hon. Gentleman prefers it, let me say that it will be the profitable ones that will be sold off into private hands and the unprofitable ones that will be left in public hands.
We want to be told by the Government whether such a division of the industry would not be wholly bad, politically and socially, whether it would not be indefensible, and whether it will not mean profits for the boys and losses for the taxpayers. We expect, and, no doubt, the Government expect, that if this happens, lovely speeches will be made by Conservative back benchers comparing the apparent efficiency of the companies in private hands with those that will remain in public hands. No doubt some hon. Gentlemen opposite are already preparing speeches on that theme.
We are entitled to ask for further comment on this point, too. Is it the Government's intention, and, if so, they should say so, that through a levy or similar device the profitable, privately-owned companies will be asked to subsidise the publicly-owned companies to an unspecified and unlimited extent? If this is the proposal, will the private owners submit to it, and for how long, and to what extent will this lessen the price that they will be prepared to pay for the companies they buy?
I come to the Board, the other body to be set up under the Bill, and whose duty it will be to maintain adequate public supervision over the industry. I say straight away that in our view the proposed Board is a sham and that the supervision it will exercise will be neither public nor adequate. First, I invite the House to consider for a moment the proposed scope of the Board's supervision.
The Labour Government came to the conclusion that it would be possible to


achieve all that was needed to make this basic industry serve the nation to the full, by an effective control over the kernel of the industry. The Corporation was, therefore, given, by virtue of ownership, the necessary authority over the 92 major iron and steel producers. These companies produced between them last year 97.4 per cent. of all the iron ore mined in this country, 97.1 per cent. of the pig iron produced, 98.7 per cent. of the steel ingots, 90.6 per cent. of the alloy steel ingots, 97.3 per cent. of the plates, 93.4 per cent. of the sheet, and 99.6 per cent. of the heavy sections, bars, rails, etc., together with a large percentage of the other major products of this industry.
There was no division of the basic iron and steel industry under our scheme. It was our deliberate policy to limit the area of public control, but in this area public control was absolute. We did not like, and do not like, the blurring of public and private responsibility, and, therefore, we left outside the ambit of the Corporation's authority the ancillary iron and steel industries such as the founders and the re-rollers, except those who were already integrated with the publicly-owned companies.
Her Majesty's present Government take a different view. The Minister of Supply told us recently, and told us again today, that our structure created an artificial division in the industry, and that any body controlling or supervising the basic iron and steel section must also supervise the founders, and presumably the re-rollers, which, altogether, comprise 2,400 firms. I am still doubtful whether we were not right when, in framing the Bill, we believed that by co-ordinating machinery the difficulty of the distribution of raw materials, and so on, could be easily overcome. Nevertheless, the present Government, no doubt after careful thought, have decided that to ensure adequate public supervision over this industry these 2,400 firms must be brought in.
We shall have to consider that situation when we re-nationalise the industry. It will be difficult to ignore the views of Her Majesty's present Government on this matter. If we bring into the scope of the re-nationalised industries some or all of these firms, we shall be fortified by the knowledge that the then Tory Opposition

cannot logically oppose us. It is, no doubt, just because many founders and re-rollers have appreciated this that they are so violently opposing the Government on this aspect of the proposals. Probably their condemnation of the Government is even more vehement in private than it has been in public.
I sympathise with them, when they criticise the Government for putting these foundries and re-rollers, many of which are only part of an engineering works, under the proposed Board. It is because at that time we shared their view that we did not do so. Now we are told by the Conservative Party that we were wrong and that they should be in. As that conclusion conies from the party whose motto is, "Set the people free and reduce the shackles on industry," we are impressed. When we come to re-nationalise the industry we may feel impelled to act on their advice.
Let us examine the duties of the Board and compare them with the powers they will have with which to implement them. The duties of the Board are set out in Clause 3 and they are comprehensive and onerous. They will have to supervise the industry—and here I quote the Clause—
with a view to promoting the efficient, economic and adequate supply under competitive conditions, of iron and steel products.
Note the word "promoting," which has a very positive meaning.
The first thing to appreciate is that the duties given to the Board are immensely wider than those ever performed by the old Board set up as a stopgap measure by the Labour Government, and often called the Forbes Board, after Sir Archibald Forbes, its chairman. The duties given to the new Board are exactly those we gave to the Corporation under our nationalisation Bill. The difference is that the Corporation was concerned with 92 companies and had all the powers necessary to carry out its duties, while the board, under the Bill, will be concerned with 2,400 companies and will have virtually no powers at all.
I will tell the House what powers the Board will possess. First of all, the Board can get the information it desires from the companies within its ambit. That is not much use, it will be agreed, unless the Board is able to do something with the information. Secondly, it can promote research and education. That


is all right, but in fact of not much value because research is already well organised by the industry, and good training schemes are fairly general. Thirdly, the Board can fix maximum prices. Incidentally this will be for producers only and not for stockists, merchants or importers. There is obviously an immense loophole here.
The Minister has already full powers to fix maximum prices. My comment on the observation of the hon. Gentleman about the difficulty of the Corporation fixing prices, and the ease with which the Board will be able to do so, is that, in my view, a great deal is to be said in an industry such as this for the power of fixing prices to rest with the Minister in any case, rather than with any other body. Fourthly, the Board can impose a levy scheme on the industry. Such a scheme has existed for many years and exists today. There is nothing new, certainly nothing constructive, here.
It will be obvious to the House that none of these powers will enable the Board to carry out in the slightest degree the positive duties with which it is charged, of promoting—I repeat the word "promoting"—the efficient, economic and adequate supply of iron and steel products. The Board will possess only one other weapon, and the Minister attaches great importance to it. It is the power to stop—note "stop"—development schemes; not any development scheme, but one which might substantially and seriously—these are the words in the Bill—affect the production facilities of the country.
How fruitful, how dynamic, how inspired! Or is it not ridiculous that these powers, and only these powers, should be granted to a Board charged with such onerous and serious duties? And is it not a fact that these powers are not only unrelated to the duties with which the Board is charged but to the real problems of this industry?
I say, therefore, that this Board as a measure of adequate public supervision responsible for promoting efficient and adequate production in this industry, is a sham. It is a piece of calculated deception and an attempt to trick Parliament and the country into the belief that there is to be some effective control over this industry once it passes into private

hands. It is granted no authority whatsoever to ask any unit in the industry to do anything—to re-organise or anything else—which that unit does not want to do.
Incidentally, even the power given to the Board to stop development is wholly inadequate for the limited objective which the Government appears to have in mind, for the Board will have no power to prevent a series of individual small schemes being put into operation among, for example, re-rollers, the most profitable part of the industry, which in total might be considerable and upset the balance of industry. Moreover the Board will have no power to prevent possibly millions of pounds being spent on the reconstruction of existing works however much it may be convinced that in the national interest the resources required could be better used elsewhere.
I hope that the Minister who replies to this debate will tell us rather more than is contained in Clause 2 of the Bill about the constitution of the Board and how it is intended to function. Will any members be full-time, apart from the Chairman, and if so, how many? In our view, they certainly should be full-time if they are to fulfil the heavy responsibilites placed on them by the Bill. Will they be actively engaged in the industry and be expected to devote just their spare time to its work? In our opinion, that would be indefensible on a number of grounds.
What kind of staff will the Board employ? The scores, indeed hundreds, necessary to exercise effective supervision over these 2,400 firms? Or will it consist of a clerk or two seconded from Steel House? In short, is it intended that the Board, with these vast wider responsibilities, should be similar to the old Forbes Board, whose members were mostly working in the industry and who met about once a fortnight and had practically no staff of their own?
I believe that is really the intention of the Government. I believe that the Government are trying to imitate what the Labour Government did—a flattering but foolish thing to do under entirely different circumstances. I believe, too, that the Government have no desire—and the industry naturally supports them in this—to permit a Board to come into existence which will have any effective authority or any control over the affairs of the industry.

Mr. Gerald Nahum: Are we to infer from the views of the right hon. Gentleman on the composition of the Board that he is in favour of a Board comprised of only full-time members?

Mr. Strauss: Not necessarily. I believe that the majority should be full-time, but it may be desirable for some to be drawn from the industry and to serve part-time.

Mr. Nabarro: If I may interrupt the right hon. Gentleman a second time, in the case of the electricity industry, which provides a close analogy in this respect, the party opposite set up a Board with only four full-time members and eight part-time members.

Mr. Strauss: The conditions were very different. I am, however, giving my view that the majority of the Board should be full-time members. The Forbes Board, which has been frequently quoted as an example by hon. Members opposite, including the Prime Minister, had to operate within a narrow compass and within that narrow compass it did its job satisfactorily. But if it is thought that the views I am expressing, either about that Board, or the new Board which is to be set up in imitation of it, are biased I invite hon. Members opposite to consider the comments made by a paper of standing in the financial and business world, a paper which cannot possibly be accused of anti-Government bias. That paper is the "Statist."
In its issue of 15th November it said:
Behind the creation of this body"—
that is the new Board—
is a good deal of political expediency. The current glorification of the original Forbes Board, set up in 1946 and which collapsed when the decision to nationalise was finally announced is just a little disingenuous. It is well known in the industry that during these three or four years effective control remained at Steel House where all important decisions were really made.
As the Minister responsible for the Board for most of the time, I broadly endorse that comment.
I also ask the House to consider another short extract from the 1st November issue of that paper:
The possibilities of friction if the Board tries to behave as if it knows its job and its own mind would appear to be endless. Yet the terms of the Bill make it difficult to

believe that the Board would be in a position effectively to exercise the supervisory functions which it has been authorised to perform. In the circumstances the Board would become either an ineffective nuisance or a mere rubber stamp for the trade associations.

Mr. Mikardo: That is what is intended.

Mr. Strauss: Of course that is what the Government intend. I add this, that I do not believe any person outside party controversies who reads the Bill can come to any other conclusion than that stated in the extracts I have read.
The House may remember that during the debate on the White Paper the Parliamentary Secretary made the point that it was not necessary for this Board to have much power because we could rely on the co-operation of the industry. The Minister of Supply endorsed that point of view today. I wonder if they really believe that. I wonder whether they are really as innocent as all that. If they are, and if they really believe that they can rely in all important matters on the co-operation of the iron and steel industry, let me tell them that whatever good will there may be in individual managers or individual leaders of the industry, the industry as a whole—if experience is any guide—dominated, as it is by Steel House, will co-operate just as far as suits it and not one inch further. On the contrary, if it is asked to do anything it does not want to do, it will, if necessary, thwart the Board, defy the Minister and try to sabotage an Act of Parliament. The present Government, whose Ministers endorsed the action of the steel industry on such occasions in the past, knows perfectly well that this is true.
The Government have made some play with the power of the Minister under the Bill to operate a plant if he considers it to be desirable and the industry thinks it commercially unsound to do so on its own account out of its own funds. This provision is, no doubt, put in to answer the criticism which has been made, and which will continue to be made, that the powers provided by this Bill are entirely negative.
I submit that this provision is a sham, too, and I will tell the House why. Indeed, the Minister himself has told the House—no doubt he did so with a desire not to frighten the iron and steel industry—that only on grounds of strategic interest would these powers be operated.


He said, on 23rd October:
I do not believe that that power will often be needed or used, except in very rare cases where it is needed on strategic grounds.
Before touching the strategic point, he said:
If the Government wish to undertake a scheme which is uneconomic, then it is up to the Government to pay for it. I personally do not believe that this kind of case will happen."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd October, 1952; Vol. 505, c. 1293.]
Of course, it will not happen. It is inconceivable that having been told by Steel House that the building of additional plant will provide too much production and too much competition, and will threaten the output and the profits of the existing privately owned plants, this Government would proceed with such an undertaking.
There is this further point. Normally, the most useful way of increasing capacity is by modernising existing plants, and not in building new ones. Under the Bill the Minister is given no power to do that, nor, of course, as we know, have he or the Board any power to compel any company to do so.
There is a related point on which I should like to make a comment. It arises under Clause 9. If at any time the Board consider that the existing arrangements for importing iron and steel raw materials and their distribution are unsatisfactory, they can make arrangements to do so themselves. The organisations at present responsible for importing and distributing iron and steel materials are called B.I.S.C. (Ore) and B.I.S.C., both agencies of Steel House. It is significant that whereas the Board can get such information as they require from the iron and steel companies under their authority, they can get no such information from these two vital organisations, on which the whole welfare of the industry depends. Steel House and everything to do with it is, apparently, to remain sacrosanct.
Supposing, however, that by some way or other the Board do get the information which they require and they decide that these organisations must be improved—as the Corporation did, finding them seriously deficient; supposing the Board find them deficient in any way, they have no power to take over B.I.S.C. (Ore) or B.I.S.C. All that the Board will be able

to do would be to set up themselves their own agency for importing and distributing the raw materials of iron and steel. I cannot believe that the Government seriously believe it to be practical for the Board to set up their own purchasing and importing organisation, which would duplicate and compete with the existing ones. I suggest, therefore, that this power in the Bill is also a bit of window dressing.
The last thing I want to say about the Bill today—no doubt I shall have many opportunities of saying other things on other occasions—is that it contains a curious phrase in the opening sentence of Clause 3, to which attention should be drawn because it is wholly misleading. The Board's duties are set out in the Clause—I have quoted the sentence once, but must quote it again—to be as follows:
to exercise a general supervision over the iron and steel industry, with a view to promoting the efficient, economic and adequate supply under competitive conditions of iron and steel products. …
"Under competitive conditions" are the words to which I want to draw attention. They only make sense on the assumption that those responsible for the Bill have either deliberately inserted them for propaganda purposes or are suffering from the delusion that the industry is not now being operated under competitive conditions similar to those on which they were operating before nationalisation.
It may well be—I can quite believe it when remembering some of the comments made by the Prime Minister when we were discussing the de-nationalisation of road haulage—that the Prime Minister himself has been so misinformed on this subject that he is seriously of the opinion that the industry today is a tight monopoly under the Corporation and that there is no competition. It may be for that reason that he has insisted on bringing the Bill before the House. If so, it is my very happy duty to disillusion him, and then, perhaps, he will withdraw it.
The fact is that today, under the Labour Government's nationalisation scheme, every steelworks which the Corporation possess is independently run, on commercial lines, by its own board of directors, and can compete with every other steelworks in the prices it charges, the quality of its products and the delivery date it promises, in exactly the same way as before nationalisation.
What more competition do the Government want? What more competition are the Board expected by the Government to achieve? These words, presumably, are put in the Bill for some purpose, and I hope that someone will tell us why they are there. If we cannot have some proper explanation, the only possible conclusion which we can draw is that these words have been inserted irresponsibly and unscrupulously for propaganda purposes to provide a plausible excuse for handing this public property over to private owners.
So much for the Bill. I have attempted to show that apart from the principle involved, which divides the parties, the method by which the Government propose to carry out the denationalisation of this industry is open to serious objection on technical as well as on political grounds. We are not alone in our view. The Minister of Supply has, no doubt, read, probably with some concern and anxiety, the criticisms recently expressed in the letter columns of "The Times." In case any Member of the House missed the letter published yesterday from Sir Albert Herbert, the Chairman of the great machine tool firm of that name, I will quote an extract from it.
After endorsing the critical view previously expressed by representatives of a large number of foundry firms, he said this:
Actually, I go further and question whether de-nationalisation of the steel industry is worth while. It might, indeed, be better to accept the fait accompli of nationalisation and thus to avoid the bitter controversies and the vast amount of work which the Bill will involve, if it becomes an Act.

Mr. Mikardo: He is a Tory, too.

Mr. Strauss: Is that not true? That is the view of a Conservative. Would it not be the view of anybody outside the political controversy raging over this subject? Is it not true, also—I hope we may get a reply about this—that the Government, in bringing the Bill before the House, did so in the belief—goodness knows why—that this was a conciliatory Measure which would appease the Opposition; that it would be one to which we would not strongly object and which would afford a permanent settlement of the iron and steel controversy?
We have been told by Ministers that they believed this was so. The situation

has now changed. The Government now know that we most emphatically disapprove of the Bill. They know, moreover, that we consider it not only thoroughly bad in principle, but in detail reprehensible, and inspired by the worst political motives. They know, too, that we conceive it our duty at the first opportunity to regroup under public ownership and Parliamentary control all those iron and steel producers essential for the national planning of this industry.
Knowing all these things, the Government should withdraw the Bill, which, in our view, is nothing more than a smart but fruitless attempt to make something disreputable look reputable. But we are not deceived. If the Government persist in continuing with this Measure, then, with all these warnings in mind, they must take full responsibility for all the serious consequences it will have in the steel industry during the years to come. Meanwhile, all we can do is to fight it, to try to amend it drastically in Committee and to ask the House tomorrow to reject its Second Reading.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. F. J. Erroll: I should like most emphatically to dissociate myself from the remarks about the Bill to which we have just listened from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) and instead to say to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply how much we on this side of the House welcome the appearance of this workmanlike and satisfactory Measure.

Mr. Mikardo: The hon. Member does not believe it himself.

Mr. Erroll: The hon. Member says that I do not believe it?

Mr. Mikardo: The hon. Member does not look as though he believed it.

Mr. Erroll: I should like to assure hon. Members opposite that I very sincerely believe in this Bill and for very many reasons. One reason why I particularly welcome this Bill is that it boldly sets out in its opening Clauses to repeal the 1949 Act, an Act which at the time those of us who were then in Opposition thoroughly deplored and did our best to oppose. Nevertheless, it was steam-rollered through Committee by means of the Guillotine procedure, and


we were unable to amend the Bill thoroughly, as we should have liked. We have now in front of us a new Bill which will satisfactorily and adequately repeal that misconceived Measure.
I listened with great interest to what the right hon. Gentleman had to say because his speech, which was as clear and explicit as his speeches usually are, served to underline the great difference in outlook between the two sides of the House. That, of course, is the great difficulty in discussing this Bill, that we are not really so much discussing the merits of one form of control or another for this particular industry, but that one side is discussing how to supervise the industry while the other side is saying that private industry is a bad thing and ought to be removed from iron and steel.
If I may put it in another way, it is very difficult to argue about the merits of the game of cricket if one party to the argument disapproves of the institution of cricket altogether. I feel, therefore, that we should approach the discussion of this Bill from the point of view that we will all support the Government and the Government's belief in the soundness and the suitability of the private enterprise system for the iron and steel industry, because it is upon that belief that our expectations of the workability of this Bill are founded.
We are, if hon. Members opposite like, being as doctrinaire about free enterprise as hon. Members opposite often are about public ownership. Our Bill is founded upon our belief that private enterprise, when allowed to work in the steel industry, will do all we expect of it. We base our own case on that, and if that is wrong then as a party we will suffer defeat at the polls.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: I have read many dissertations on the merits of private enterprise, but I do not believe I have ever heard that it was necessary to supervise private enterprise by setting up a quasi-Government board.

Mr. Erroll: I am coming to that very point. I want first to make my initial point, that we believe that the procedure which will result from this Bill will work because the private enterprise system will flourish under the arrangements proposed in this Bill.
I want now to turn to the point put by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley). The question of how to organise this industry is a difficult one, and if I may say so, there are three possible ways of going about it. One is the full-blooded state of public ownership as put into effect by the late Labour Government. At the opposite end is the system of complete laissez faire under which the industry grew to its present stature. Then there is the half-way house of State supervision, while allowing the best elements of private enterprise to have their full sway.
The history of the industry in the interwar years was not happy, and today we are now faced with the difficulty of applying the solutions of the problems of the '30s to the conditions which now prevail in the 1950s. I venture to suggest that the solution of the late '30s was only an imperfect solution, namely, the protection afforded under tariffs and the setting up of the Import Duties Advisory Committee. Mistakes were undoubtedly made, and particularly can we see that when we now have, as we all have, hind-sight and can look back at the events which took place in those days.
But do we want to frame our policy for the 1950s merely on some attempt to correct the mistakes of the '30s? Surely we want to work out a new policy appropriate to the present time. I think the policy of nationalisation might well have been appropriate in the days of the '30s, when the steel companies were faced with the problems of despair, of price cutting, redundant plants, closing down of plants and all the social distress that there followed from that. The problem today is quite different. It is to secure the modernisation and the expansion of this industry and to secure a greater output. Furthermore, we want to get away from the rigid price structure with elaborate systems of levies for home ores as against imported ores, and other devices which rightly were born in the period of restriction and continued through the difficulties of war time.
We want to get away from those things into a freer atmosphere and into a climate in which the best elements of private enterprise can flourish for the good of all, and that is exactly what this Bill sots out to achieve. This Bill sets a stage, so to speak, on which private enterprise


can develop and flourish for the good of all. The arrangements, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall sought to criticise as being too loose and too vague and which in a more lively moment he suggested were disreputable, are quite rightly loose and free because we believe that they should be loose and free in order to get the best out of the system in which we believe.
It may well be that hon. Members opposite would argue that we should not believe in this system, but we do and that is why this Bill is shaped in the way it is. It is the way we believe the industry should go. For my part, I should like to see rather more freedom and rather less supervision in a period such as this. We want the minimum of supervision and the maximum of freedom, but I recognise that in this Bill we have resorted to a compromise. There is considerably more supervision in this Bill than many of us would have written in on our own, but it is a genuine attempt to seek a permanent solution with hon. Members opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I am sorry so many hon. Members opposite shake their heads, because I would ask them to remember the amount of nationalisation legislation which we are leaving untouched. We are not going to denationalise electricity, gas or the great coal industry. We are not attempting to denationalise coal.

Mr. W. A. Wilkins: Because the Government dare not.

Mr. Erroll: Whether we dare or not is another subject, but the fact is we are not going to do so, and in this particular industry we are only going half-way or perhaps two-thirds of the way towards complete freedom. The reason for that is that many of us on this side of the House would like to secure a permanent and lasting settlement of this matter, and I hope hon. Members will appreciate our motives in that respect.

Mr. Mikardo: We appreciate that all right. We have no fear of that.

Mr. Erroll: Many of our great industries today are flourishing without supervision of this type and it cannot be said that they are suffering from the freedom which they enjoy. I would mention but two, the shipping industry and the oil industry. Neither of those two requires a board to supervise it or control

its prices or decide where its new projects should be sited. They are able to decide these things for themselves and they have decided wisely and well. I wonder why in the House of Commons nowadays we are always so bent upon supervising everybody else. Why must we have all this supervision?

Mr. Mikardo: It is the hon. Member's Bill.

Mr. Erroll: We are always supervising other people and that is why we must look very carefully at the question of supervision. I see that Mr. Hardie is coming forth with a scheme for industrialists to supervise the nationalised industries. Perhaps we shall get to the stage where we shall have businessmen supervising some Government activities.

Mr. Fienburgh: We have that already.

Mr. Mikardo: Ask the brewers.

Mr. Erroll: We are not debating the brewing industry today. Industries should be allowed as much freedom from supervision as is possible, and if we could only get away from the idea that we must for ever be supervising everybody else the country would do better and so would our industries.

Mr. Mikardo: I am fascinated by what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Is he, in effect, giving notice to the Minister that on the Committee stage he will move Amendments to take all the supervision out of the Bill?

Mr. Erroll: I am sorry if I have not made myself quite clear. I am compromising with the principles of true freedom in the interest of trying to secure a lasting settlement for this industry. I suggest that we should do very much better if we could let the industry go its own way, just as other industries do with great success, in the changed conditions of the '50s. Close supervision and control may have been necessary in the '30s, and, indeed, in the '40s, but conditions have now changed considerably. However, we are continuing with the idea of a supervisory Board in order that hon. Members opposite may feel that a principle which we know they cherish is still to be retained in the industry.

Mr. Albu: Would the hon. Gentleman be in favour of abolishing all forms of supervision, including that carried on by the Iron and Steel Federation?

Mr. Erroll: I should certainly like to see the supervision by the Iron and Steel Federation considerably loosened and, if necessary, examined by the Monopolies Commission, if there was to be no alternative form of supervision as now planned in the Bill.
As to the features of the Bill which are particularly concerned with disposals and realisations, I consider it a most valuable development to separate the policy supervision of the industry, since we are agreed that we must have it, from the physical ownership of the companies. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall stressed some of the advantages of a single vast unit, such as the Steel Corporation, with its beginnings of an embryo regional organisation.
From his point of view, and looking at the matter through Socialist eyes, I can see great merits in such a system, but not according to our way of looking at things. We do not believe that produces a satisfactory solution in which the free enterprise principle can flourish. Such a system as he suggested may apply satisfactorily to an organisation like the Post Office, which is relatively stable and static in character, but it is not suitable for a technically evolving industry.

Mr. Albu: Really.

Mr. Erroll: It is most noticeable that the behaviour of wholly-owned subsidiary companies in any industrial structure is substantially different from the behaviour of companies whose shares are held by a large number of shareholders. The attitude of the board of directors towards the problems of their company when they are responsible to one single shareholder is quite different from that when they are responsible to a large number of shareholders. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad that hon. Members opposite agree about that, because there is no doubt that the companies whose directors are responsible to a large number of shareholders behave in a much more responsible manner because they have to pay more heed to what the shareholders may say than when they are responsible to one shareholder. In the latter situation they are often merely managers appointed by the shareholders; in the other case, they are—this is of great importance—responsible for the financial and other policies to a large group of the public.

Mr. Mikardo: Does the hon. Gentleman really suggest that shareholders run companies?

Mr. Erroll: I am not suggesting that shareholders run the companies. The directors run the companies, but the effective supervision of the directors is much more ably realised when there are a large number of shareholders than when there is only one shareholder.

Mr. Mikardo: The hon. Gentleman is just 18 years out of date.

Mr. Erroll: I appreciate that the Realisation Agency will be the sole shareholder of a number of companies when the Bill becames an Act, but it is the intention to dispose of the assets of the companies to as wide a number of shareholders as proves possible. I hope that, when the shares come to be disposed of, they will be spread as widely as possible and will be purchased not only by small investors but also by trade union pension funds. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] As many of them were held by trade union pension funds before, it is understandable that they might like the opportunity of buying them back.
I feel we are entitled to expect that those who believe in the system of private enterprise will help us in spreading the ownership of the steel industry throughout the length and breadth of this land. I deplore the line which has been taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall. To suggest, and almost to threaten, that those who act in accordance with an Act of Parliament may subsequently have their shares either confiscated or taken away from them without due and proper compensation—

Mr. Jack Jones: Is the hon. Member suggesting that my trade union, which has £1,250,000 in liquid capital assets, and sponsors the public ownership and control of the industry should invest its money in this venture when it knows that the industry is being destroyed?

Mr. Erroll: The hon. Member should leave that to the investment manager of his union, who will, no doubt, show good sense. I put it to the right hon. Member for Vauxhall that, although we said many hard things during the passage of the 1949 Act—I said as many hard things as anybody did—we never


suggested to those in the industry or to the shareholders that they should try to prevent the operation of the Act once it became law. His conduct has been as reprehensible in the last few weeks and again today as ours would have been if we had, for example, told the managers in the steel plants that they should not co-operate with the new Iron and Steel Corporation.

Mr. Mikardo: Hon. Gentlemen opposite did precisely that.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: As the hon. Gentleman surely knows, that is exactly the suggestion which went out from the authority at Steel House to all the leaders in the industry.

Mr. Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to tell him outside this Chamber the names of individual directors who were threatened that their superannuation benefits would be taken from them if they dared to enter into the Corporation?

Mr. Erroll: If the hon. Gentleman cares to give me that informaton, naturally I shall be very glad to receive it. I was dealing with the proceedings in this Chamber and in the Committee Room upstairs. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] I was dealing with the Parliamentary conduct of the matter. I am not responsible for what Steel House might or might not have done. I am dealing with the conduct of hon. Members, whether on the Government side or on the Opposition side. I suggest that it is most dishonourable to make such implications and references to the future as would seriously embarrass the passage of this Bill. We certainly did not do that when we were in Opposition, although some of us would have liked to have embarrassed the Government of the day in that way.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: Would the hon. Gentleman allow me to put this point to him? Did not the present Financial Secretary to the Treasury talk on one occasion about "quislings in the City"?

Mr. Erroll: Yes, but I am talking of what was said in this Chamber—

Mr. Mikardo: The hon. Member had better leave this point and try another one.

Mr. Erroll: I am obliged to the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) for instructing me how to conduct my speech. I am sure his advice as a time and motion study expert on these matters must be most valuable.
I wish to deal particularly with the activities listed in the Third Schedule of the Bill, because it is plain that there is a certain amount of feeling in the industry over these matters which the right hon. Member for Vauxhall was quick to exploit. He quoted from the letter of a Midland manufacturer who, I think, expressed himself quite unnecessarily strongly on the subject, because he was one of the gentlemen who, when we were in Opposition, was most anxious to secure from us a pledge that we would denationalise the industry as soon as we were returned to power. And now he is suffering from a sharp bout of frozen feet—which is perhaps understandable in view of the weather—

Mr. Nabarro: Is my hon. Friend aware—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): Order. It is undesirable that there should be these interruptions. There are many hon. Members who are anxious to take part in this debate, and these interruptions should be cut down to a minimum.

Mr. Nabarro: Would my hon. Friend—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. Mr. Erroll.

Mr. Erroll: I gave way to my hon Friend—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. It is not a question merely of giving way. It is taking up time which should be devoted to speeches. It is impossible to conduct this debate by way of dialogue in this way. It should be conducted by speeches from one side of the House or the other.

Mr. Erroll: You appreciate, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I am in the difficulty that if I do not give way to hon. Members opposite I am bound to have my speech heavily interrupted by casual interruptions, and I felt that I ought to give way to an hon. Member from my own side of the House.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I would remind hon. Members on both sides of the House that there should be no interruptions in speeches except by way of personal explanation of any ambiguity. Interruptions which are merely getting in another point of view eat into the time of hon. Members who wish to make other speeches.

Mr. Nabarro: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I merely wanted to ask him whether he was aware that the change of opinion on the part of the gentleman concerned is probably due to the fact that he is 87 years of age?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. That is not a desirable point to make. It is a point for another speech.

Mr. Erroll: I am, of course, aware that there is understandable apprehension on the part of a large number of engineering manufacturers when they see some of the activities mentioned in the Third Schedule. I was particularly sorry to see that the right hon. Member for Vauxhall took the point so quickly and turned it to his own advantage, and made the evil suggestion that a future Labour Government might nationalise all the engineering firms who are conducting these processes. I consider that was a most disreputable statement to make and quite unworthy of the right hon. Gentleman. In fact, I should like to challenge him to write that proposal into any Labour Party doctrine pamphlet—

Mr. Ellis Smith: It is already in.

Mr. Erroll: —because I am quite sure they would lose the next election on any such statement as that.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he seems to have misunderstood what I said. I said that we must take note of the view of the Conservative Government that we cannot, or should not, divide this industry for the purpose of supervision; and therefore, when we come to re-nationalise, we shall have to take their decision into account and see whether we have to, or should, bring into the nationalisation scheme all, or part, of those whom the Conservative Government consider should come under national supervision.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: On a point of order. Seeing that just now, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, you obliged my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) to resume his seat in the course of a question he was putting to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll), may I ask why you did not do the same to the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss)?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I understood that the right hon. Gentleman was rising to a point of explanation. An explanation of an ambiguity is in order. What I was deploring was the growing practice among hon. Members of interrupting by making interjections and so, in effect, getting in a second speech.

Mr. Edward Evans: Further to that point of order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to question the motive underlying a decision of the Chair?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order.

Mr. Erroll: I hope that now the right hon. Member for Vauxhall will realise what I have been saying, that our idea of supervision is a very different one from his. We believe, not in the restrictive supervision so dear to the hearts of hon. Members opposite, but only in the supervision of general expansion and conditions.
In including certain processes in the Third Schedule we have in mind supervision only of the lightest degree. It may indeed be possible, with regard to foundries, to consider whether we are concerned only with the supervision of the supply of their essential raw material, namely pig iron and scrap, and certainly not with the detailed type of supervision which is what the word means to hon. Members opposite.
At the same time, I hope the Minister will reconsider the word "rolling" in paragraph 5 of the Third Schedule, because as it stands at present, it includes bending by means of rollers, and thus goes considerably wider than I think any of us intended. It would be quite simple to alter the word "rolling" to a more expressive phrase such as that used in the 1949 Act to limit it to the rolling process.

Mr. Mikardo: The rolling of logs?

Mr. Erroll: Not the rolling of logs, but of steel sections whose cross-sectional areas are thereby altered.
Forging is another process which surely calls for closer definition—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—hon. Members opposite are quick to see that the word is too widely drawn as it stands at present. As it stands just now, it means that anybody who owns any form of power hammer, such as a steel hammer in a locomotive repair shop, or even in a large garage, would automatically be brought within the supervision of this Bill. I am sure that was not intended, and I am equally sure that it can quite readily be amended so as to limit the application of the phrase to what was originally intended.
I have tried to explain to hon. Members opposite the underlying philosophy of this Bill. I hope that when they come with us on Committee stage they will realise the basis on which we are working and make constructive Amendments, so sharing with us our belief that it may be a permanent solution for the industry.

5.49 p.m.

Mr. Alex. Anderson: I welcome the opportunity to intervene in this debate because the town I represent is the heart of steel production in Scotland. It is a town where private enterprise, which the Minister extolled today and which he is so anxious to restore to power, operated. It is a town which sweated in war-time and starved in peacetime. It is a town which had 54 per cent. of its steel operatives idle at a time when private enterprise in steel was entering into cartels, restricting production and bringing from India coolie-produced iron ore in order to depress wages in this country.
I regret that this Bill has been introduced in this fashion. What we are discussing today is not merely an abstract question of who is to control steel, who is to own the shares in the steel industry; it is a question of the life and happiness of countless men and women who depend on the production of steel. In the area which I represent nobody welcomes this Bill, except a handful of people who have had a stranglehold upon the life of the community for generations.
The managers and operatives have done their best under the new set-up. The

users of steel are content with the present distribution—much more content than they were under private enterprise. The traders in the town are happier. There has been a buoyancy since the changeover because the men in the industry have had heart to go to their work with a feeling that they were working for the community. To change all this, without any reasons being adduced, we get this Bill.
It is a mass of contradictions with no leading line through it. It should have been produced by Gilbert, and if music by Sullivan could have been supplied it might have been produced somewhere in the West End. We find the Minister saying that he intends to set the industry free to win dollars. At the same time, he extends the number of firms over which he will have some control from 92 to 2,400. He drags in, in spite of their protests, many small firms who are to be martyred on the altar of Toryism.
He sets up a Board to organise and control the industry with wider powers even than those possessed by the present Board. He charges them with grave and serious responsibilities, gives them duties to perform which would take a lot of performing even with the highest powers, and he carefully draws their teeth so that they can carry out none of the functions he assigns to them. The Minister proposes to have a bargain sale of the steel industry in which the cream will be siphoned off and the rest will be left. That is to be done by an agency responsible to the Treasury and divorced from the body responsible for the control of the industry.
There is no provision in the Bill to say who is to deal with the parts of the industry which are to be left on the Government's hands. Nobody seems to know exactly what is to be the set-up, except that there is indecent haste to send back to the people who formerly controlled steel the profits which are now coming from a much expanded industry.
We in Scotland will feel the change much more than any other part of Britain. This Bill will affect Scotland profoundly and deeply. We have in Scotland a steel industry which is doing well and producing between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 tons of steel a year. But it is not nearly so well integrated as the industry in the southern parts of this island.


Possibly private enterprise in Scotland was not operating so well as it was in England, but we have had undue and unpardonable delay in the attempt to integrate and modernise Scottish steel.
Therefore, we shall be in the position when these businesses are returned to the firms which owned them previously, that we shall no longer be a part of a conception of a united steel industry in Britain. We shall be a section working on our own, facing our geographical and financial difficulties in a way which will give us very grave concern. There are many small plants in Scotland. Those plants have existed because they gave a personal attention or produced a specialised product. Many of these plants will ultimately close down.
The closing down, under a nationalised steel industry, would have been carried out with a due concern for the social implications in the area affected. We in Lanarkshire have bitter memories of what private enterprise in steel did when it was decided to close down plants. I can recollect that a great steel firm in Bellshill, without consultation or consideration, having blackened the landscape of Lanarkshire with bings, decided to shift and to blacken part of the English countryside instead. They left the place derelict, and all the social values that we in local authority work had built up were derelict also.
We have many problems of this nature to face in Lanarkshire. We face the problem that we depend largely on imported scrap, that our native ores have been neglected and our iron industry allowed to die because goods could be bought cheaper from other sources. The real purpose of this Bill is not to get the best out of the steel industry. This is a return to the old system. I have not noticed anything which this Government have done since they took office—

Mr. Robson Brown: I should be most interested to know what iron ore field in Scotland has been deliberately neglected either before or since the war.

Mr. Anderson: There has been a steady retrogression in the production of iron in Lanarkshire and in Ayrshire—

Mr. Robson Brown: I have followed what the hon. Gentleman has said

closely. I should like some information about iron ore, because what he said disturbed me. It is something of which I had no knowledge whatever.

Mr. Anderson: Low grade iron ore is found in various parts of Scotland. Iron ore of a low grade was found with coal. The first iron works in Scotland were put up to exploit that iron ore. That industry was allowed to die with the working out of the coal.

Mr. Robson Brown: And the working out of the iron ore.

Mr. Anderson: And partly the working out of the iron ore, too. That is beside the point. The point is what are we getting at in this Bill. Is this a real and honest attempt to make an industry in which we can take pride, to build up an industry over which there will be public control and inside which there will be happiness for operatives, with service to the community as the main purpose? Or is this an attempt to bring back into power a body of men who have controlled the lives of people in certain areas of this country for generations?
Is this an attempt to relieve them of the responsibility for development inside the industry? Is it an attempt to give them freedom to enter into cartels again, to restrict production and to do all those vicious things which left a blight over a large part of Scotland and England? Already a great Scottish iron master, in a speech in the West of Scotland, has defended the cartel system. He said that he could see the time coming when the cartel system would again operate.
We do not believe in that system. We do not believe that restrictions ever achieve anything.

Mr. Erroll: Not even in trade unions?

Mr. Anderson: Not even in trade unions. It seems to me that this Bill has no justification except as an attempt to bring back the private profit motive into the steel industry.

6.10 p.m.

Mr. Spencer Summers: We have just listened to a speech packed with prejudice and sadly lacking in that factual knowledge which I should have thought the House would have preferred to hear from the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Alex Anderson). The


hon. Gentleman went so far as to contradict himself. First of all, he complained that under this Bill Scotland would be deprived of that central authority which could intelligently integrate the various units in Scotland, and, in his next sentence, he complained that an unreasonable closing down of works would follow from the plans we are now putting forward. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways.

Mr. Alex. Anderson: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not like to misrepresent me. I did not suggest that an unreasonable closing down of works would follow, but I believe that when works become seriously uneconomic it is folly to try to keep them open. What I said was that, when closing down takes place under private enterprise, it is done without any consideration being given to its social implications.

Mr. Summers: It is precisely to prevent the closing down of works being the sole right of private enterprise that powers of supervision have been given in this Bill.
I want, first of all, in order to satisfy an hon. Member who interrupted me last time, to make the usual declaration of personal interest, which I do before we go any further. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) showed quite clearly, by the extravagant language which he used in connection with this Bill, that he starts from a very different point of view to that of hon. Members on this side of the House, which really is the fundamental reason why it has not yet been found possible to build a bridge between the two points of view.
The right hon. Gentleman starts on the assumption that those in control of industry, and, particularly, those in the steel trade, are suspect, and that, for that reason, he is not prepared to give them freedom to operate their own companies, subject to certain safeguards, because of the suspicion with which he views the whole of private enterprise. He finds that system unsatisfactory, and he demands that a system of State ownership should take its place. Let us make no bones about it; we do not share that suspicion that is so frequently voiced from the other side of the House, and it is because of that that we look forward

with confidence to being able to work out a satisfactory partnership between the Government and those in control of this industry.
I welcome this Bill, because it seems to me that it will be possible under it for the Government to be able to take part in that strategic planning which it is in the national interest that it should do, while, at the same time, leaving to the management the tactical operation of the day-to-day management of the companies. It is precisely because experience was beginning to show that that was not going to be so that we foresaw the risk of leaving the present situation to operate any longer.
I think the right hon. Gentleman also alluded to the fact that there had been so little change under nationalisation that he could not quite understand the fears which were voiced, for the position, he said, was so different to the fears predicted for nationalisation before it was an accomplished fact. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will read the document, which has been circulated to all of us today, which is written by Mr. Hardie, when he will see that the fears referred to were the fears of an increasing bureaucracy after nationalisation. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman wishes to interrupt, perhaps he will have the courtesy to rise to his feet.

Mr. Mikardo: I merely observed—and the hon. Gentleman could hear me quite well—that there is nothing in Mr. Hardie's document in support of the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, and I think he should read it before he quotes it.

Mr. Summers: I am not going to be diverted. Anybody who takes the trouble to read this document—and I have done so—will find a reference to duplication and more bureaucracy in the system than anything that could be found elsewhere.
Whatever we may say in this House, I hold the view that many people outside are getting rather tired of some of these controversies. I think they are coming to the conclusion that there is a sector of the British economy which will remain nationalised. That sector is outside the field of controversy. At the other end, it is by common consent agreed—except perhaps by extremists—that a vast variety of miscellaneous manufacturing operations in this country will at no time be


nationalised; but that, in the middle, lies a section of the British economy, of which the steel industry is a part, in which there should be a compromise between the extremes of nationalisation and laissez faire which will ensure that the public interest and private enterprise motives are adequately reconciled. It is because I feel that this Bill does that that I believe that, outside the House, it will have a much more favourable reception than has been given to it by Members opposite.
There is one point upon which even those who hope profoundly that this compromise may be a lasting one are some-, what disturbed, and it is one to which I want to allude, namely, the question whether, when this industry is no longer nationalised, it will be possible to raise sufficient capital for its requirements. [Interruption.] An hon. Gentleman thinks it will not; perhaps he will have the courtesy to wait until I have made my remarks. Since the war, over half the capital spent has been found from internal resources, and that has been a very marked contribution to the problem of capital provision.
Reference was made earlier to the additional resources of capital—the finance corporation and the like—which was, somehow, thought to be Government money. Let me make it quite clear that it is not Government money at all, but that it is a perfectly right and proper place for private enterprise to go to for its capital resources, if it so desires.
There are two considerations which I would ask those concerned with the matter to take into account. The second development plan will be a much cheaper one in terms of output per annum than the first stage, because, in a very large number of cases, the foundations for the extensions built in the first plan were carried further, so that a part of the job would be done when further extensions were required. The addition of further extensions will, for that reason, be considerably cheaper than was the case with the first plan.
Secondly, the industry will have the benefit, during the period of development of stage two, of the undistributed profits earned by the plant put up in the first stage, so that, on both these grounds, it will tend to be easier for the industry to finance its own requirements, and I

expect that a higher percentage of the capital can be found from internal resources in stage two than it was possible to find, in fact, in stage one. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman may take a different view, but I am expressing what I believe to be the facts, and we are all entitled to our own opinions.
Reference has been made to skimming off the cream and leaving the rest behind, and the inference was that there would be—I am not sure if the words "sharp practice" were not used—in regard to the sale of profitable undertakings. What seems to me to be completely ignored in this connection are two facts. First of all, whether or not an undertaking is profitable to the buyer will depend upon the price at which it is offered. Perhaps, one business may make only modest profits, but it may be a very attractive investment if, in fact, the price is cheap enough. Therefore, it is quite impossible to relate the profitability without knowing the price that is going to be charged for these undertakings.
It may be—a view with which hon. Members opposite differ—that the plant which has been put up most recently will remain in public hands the longest. The Steel Company of Wales has cost very large sums of money and is at a particular disadvantage in that it is not able to marry the results of that vast expenditure with a very considerable quantity of older plant put down at a time when captial expenditure was much cheaper. The exceptionally high proportion of new plant in that case will make it a much more difficult proposition to finance and maintain on that account.
If that happens, there will surely be no complaint from hon. Members opposite because they have criticised the industry for not spending enough money on modernisation, and if they find that such plant is left in the public sector of the industry, I am sure they will be only too delighted.
I now want to say a word about the scope and function of the Board. In his speech, the Minister alluded to the worries of the foundry industry and mentioned that they were concerned lest the Board should interfere unreasonably with the development of their plants. I cannot think that there is any justification for such fears when one reads the particular Clause under which the Board would have


the right to do that. It can hardly be imagined that the modest changes which will be made in most cases will
prejudice the economic development of productive facilities in Great Britain.
A letter in one newspaper said that it would be unfortunate if one part of a large foundry works had to operate on a different system from that obtaining in the rest of the works owing to the powers of supervision of the Board. That is a complete misunderstanding of the intentions of the Government under this Bill. It is not intended that the Board should concern itself with the day-to-day management of individual plants, but only with the strategic supervision of policy.
Having said that, and holding the view that these fears are unfounded—because it will not be proper for the Board in most instances to worry the foundries on those grounds—it follows that, without destroying the benefits of the Bill, it should be possible to cut out from certain specific duties of the Board their application to the smaller foundries in a very large number of cases, if only on the grounds of administrative convenience. I should have said there was a lot to be said for that.
I cannot agree with the argument—obviously used to escape from the consequences of the Bill—that a foundry which produces only for itself should on those grounds be excluded from the provisions of the Bill. In the first instance, a blast furnace might be established primarily to supply its products not for sale generally, but for the company that built it. In that sense, it is a tied blast furnace.
For instance, it would be perfectly possible for a sheet mill to be established for the benefit of the motor trade and for producing all that that trade needed. If that is to be the reason for excluding such a mill from the provisions of this Bill, it means that on that account it would be outside the purview of the Board. Therefore, I cannot agree that the argument for the tied firm is a valid one.

Mr. Mikardo: That is why they will be nationalised.

Mr. Summers: So far as this suggestion and the apparent threat of the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Mikardo), who persists in muttering instead of getting to his feet, is concerned, namely, that this

Bill is an invitation to a future Labour Government to nationalise them, the party opposite know quite well that if in power in future they do not require to take what they call a leaf out of the Conservative Party's book to do that. They will follow their own views. They did not take a leaf out of the Tory Party's book on the last occasion, and will not do so next time. This is just bluff for the benefit of this debate.
Lastly, I want to draw attention to the fact that among the duties of the Board, which are particularly listed in Clause 3, no mention is made of marketing. The Board is given the duty of supervising development, prices, research, welfare, and such matters, but nothing is said about marketing. I should have thought it was essential for the Board, in order properly to do its job, to supervise the marketing arrangements of the private concerns, particularly if a time should arrive when it would be in the national interest that this country should co-operate with Continental countries in the export market.
I do not regret that we are not members of the Schuman group, but I think that the time may well come when this country will wish to co-operate with the Schuman countries in the same way as between the wars we were associated as a group with Continental producers. Indeed, I am sure that the time will come when the producers of this country will want to make arrangements with the producers of the Schuman group.
I hope that when we reach the Committee stage it will be possible to insert words into the Bill to make it clear that the Board will be the instrument used by the Government for any ideas they might have in that field. In conclusion, I hope that when this Bill is passed and the present party controversy, which is inevitably aroused on an occasion such as this, has abated a fair chance will be given for the system here proposed to prove its worth, namely, the reconciliation of the public interest with the freedom of private enterprise.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. Clement Davies: This has been a very interesting and helpful debate. The opening speech of the Minister, in which he explained the Bill, and also the speech of the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) were, if I may be permitted to


say so, very excellent debating speeches. I was also very impressed by the speech of the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Alex Anderson), which called attention to the fact that we are dealing not only with one of the biggest and most vital industries of this country, but also with the future of the men and women engaged in it. I am sure I am echoing the wishes of every hon. Member in this House when I say that we ought to hear from the hon. Member for Motherwell more frequently in our debates. He is always so well-informed.
One does not want to enter into the ideologies underlying this matter. Those have been thrashed out time and time again ever since 1949. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House without a doubt are absolutely convinced that there is only one way of dealing with this industry, and that is that the ownership should be in the possession of the Government representing the people as a whole. On the other hand, hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House do not believe in that. Nor do I.
I always have been and shall always be anti-Socialist as far as that is concerned. I do not believe in public ownership unless it is proved to me beyond a peradventure that that is the best way. [Interruption.] I wish hon. Members would learn tolerance in these matters. So often on this side of the House if anybody on any occasion dares to hold a different view from hon. Members on any subject those hon. Members get angry. There is no need for it at all. They must really learn that there are different views in the world and that tolerance is required.
I am not alone even on this side of the House in not thinking that the ownership of all the means of production, distribution and exchange are essential. My views are shared by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison). I remember on more than one occasion the right hon. Gentleman adopting a formula of which, I think, I was the author, and I do not object in any way to his having pirated it. I remember saying somewhere as early as 1945, and it was adopted on many occasions afterwards, that if it was desired to change the ownership into public

ownership in any industry the burden of proving that it was beneficial to the public lay upon those who desired to change that ownership into the hands of the public, and that there should be very full, adequate and fair inquiry. If on that inquiry it was found that it was far and away the best means of serving the public—and I am now speaking as a Liberal—I would say that I was in favour of transferring that service or industry into the hands of the public.
I might give as an instance the cases of gas and electricity, in both of which there was a very full inquiry. My complaint about this frightfully important industry of iron and steel is that there was no inquiry whatsoever. I wish the then Government had not been in such a hurry in 1949. I protested at the time, and I asked that there should be a full inquiry. Much of what has been said and of the arguments that have been going on ever since would have been unnecessary if that inquiry had been held.
That not having been done, and believing as I do in private ownership as against the other unless it is proved that it is wrong, I welcome this Bill. On behalf of my people I took that attitude in 1949 and before the elections of 1950 and 1951. I broadcast that view when I was allowed to broadcast. It is rather significant that the coming into operation of the Bill which is now an Act was deferred until after the Election. It is rather extraordinary that that had been the last major Bill which had been discussed in the House and yet in no single instance—and I have had this checked—when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who were then in the Government spoke on behalf of the Government and appealed to the public, did one of them in any broadcast mention steel. I did, and so did the Conservative speakers.
What was the result? Unfortunately, as far as I and my party were concerned, we polled about 2,500,000 votes and we are now only a handful in this House. But I think that we still represent a point of view which is very widely held in the country. Liberalism is so deeply embedded in the people of this country that it will be a very long time before they ever throw it completely on one side. Taking the votes of both Liberals and Conservatives, there was an overwhelming majority against going on with the nationalisation of iron and steel.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that in the Labour Party manifesto for 1945 we said:
Public ownership of iron and steel—private monopoly has maintained high prices and kept inefficient high-cost plants in existence. Only if public ownership replaces private monopoly can the industry become efficient.
These socialised industries, taken over on a basis of fair compensation, to be conducted efficiently in the interests of consumers, coupled with proper status and conditions for the workers employed in them.
We won the election just on that.

Mr. Davies: I was referring to 1950, when this was a very burning issue not only before this House but before the country, and there was no reference then. I welcome this Bill because it put matters back into private ownership, and I think that gives a far better opportunity to those working in the industry. I am hoping that in a very short time there will be far and away more co-ownership in that industry.

Mr. Mikardo: Oh.

Mr. Davies: The hon. Member does not believe in that. He believes in ownership by nobody but the State.

Mr. Mikardo: My ejaculation was forced out, not because I did not believe in it, but because the directors of the steel companies do not believe in it.

Mr. Davies: They are not the only people involved. After all, influence will come to bear even upon the owners. I hope that there will be representation of all those who are actually working in the industry. I cannot possibly see that in a nationalised industry.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not recognise that he is advocating the return of the steel industry into the hands of private firms? Is he willing to recreate the insufferable position created in many areas up and down the country in the inter-war years because of the antics of those people in reserving the profits for themselves?

Mr. Davies: First I believe that we should go back to private ownership, but that is not all. The key of this Bill is the Board with its power of supervising and seeing what is happening, the fact that it will gather information and make

that available and, through the Minister, will be responsible to the House. To me, that makes the position under this Bill far and away different from and better than was the position prior to the war and prior to nationalisation.
This is such an important industry and such vast sums are involved and it can so affect human beings that it is only right and proper that there should be exercised over the industry some strong and independent body that will have the power that is given in this Bill. That is why I welcome the Bill, though I am not going into it in great detail tonight.
We have known how wrong some of us were when, after an inquiry had been held, we welcomed nationalisation. Let us take for example electricity or gas. How often did I at that time advocate it and say, "Look at it. If anyone of you suffers now I cannot do anything except possibly write to the Board who may not pay any attention, but once the industry is nationalised we can ask questions". We all realise that after nationalisation has been carried out practically nothing can be done in that respect except once a year when the Minister gives a review. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nor before."] There was nothing before, but there is now under this Bill. In Clause after Clause there is reference to a duty placed upon the Minister. Whenever there is a duty placed upon the Minister, or even where discretion is given to the Minister, this House has then a perfect right to ask the Minister why he exercised that duty, or did not do so.

Mr. Albu: The right hon. and learned Gentleman, I believe, has read the Report of the Select Committee which considered this matter. I think he will agree that the powers of Ministers in this Bill are greater, stronger, wider and more direct than in the present Act. If the Select Committee found that it was not possible for the Minister to be asked questions under the present Act, what sort of questions does the right hon. and learned Gentleman think it will be possible to ask the Minister under this Bill?

Mr. Davies: One sees how often the Minister is referred to in the Bill, how often duties are placed upon him and discretion is given to him, and under the


rules of the House questions can be put to the Table and the Minister would be bound to answer why and how he has exercised that duty of discretion.
My last point is this. It was referred to by an hon. Gentleman who knows so much about this industry and who has spent his life in it. I would like to know, if the Bill becomes law, what will be the liaison with the Continental companies under the Schuman Plan. I have begged the Government to take part in that plan, to go to Paris and at any rate take part in the discussions. The matter has gone on. This industry affects all of us. It affects Europe, this country, our export position and everything else. The closer the co-operation there is between all of us, the better it will be. For these reasons, I welcome this Bill.

6.43 p.m.

Mr. Wilfred Fienburgh: I am always charmed to listen to the speeches of the Minister of Supply. He worries his way through his brief with an agonising frown on his face as though searching for some hidden truth which he knows in his heart he will never find. If the truth that he is looking for is the answer to the problems of the iron and steel industry, he did not find it today, because the answer lies not in his speech nor in this Bill nor in the policy of the party opposite.
He is trying to impress upon us that in putting forward the conception of a public authority to control and exercise some jurisdiction over a private monopoly, he is in some way acting as the midwife at the birth of a new and lusty infant. He is doing nothing of the sort. He is disinterring a corpse which was buried by the last Labour Administration. We have had three previous experiences within the last 20 years of an attempt to exercise public accountability, through a public board, over the private steel industry, and every single one of those attempts has failed.
Therefore, I am glad that he rested so much of his case upon the need which he felt resided upon him to prove that it was possible to control this industry by some external Board. I propose during my remarks to draw attention to the previous experiments and to show how completely inadequate from every point of

view and in every respect was the supervision of the privately-owned iron and steel industry by some public authority.
Some Conservatives have at least got the Dutch courage of their prejudices, even if they have not got the courage of their convictions. They are still prepared to argue against all the evidence from all over the world that it is, by some peculiar alchemy, possible through the private ownership of the steel industry to make it competitive, and from that competition to get the right amount of steel at the right place at the right time at the right price.
But nowhere in the world today is there a fully free, privately competitive steel industry, and there has not been for some considerable time. Even in the United States where they are tied—hamstrung, one would think—by the operations of the anti-trust and anti-cartel laws, by some extraordinary coincidence the price of steel is always raised by precisely the same amount by every single company at precisely the same minute of the same hour of the same day, proving conclusively that if there is no formalised agreement between these industries, they have recognised that they must operate collectively and centrally in order to protect their interests and their industry.
I have no objection to this, because steel just happens to be one of those industries which is inevitably a natural monopoly. Steel is too big in its individual units. To envisage a competitive battle between the independent units of a competitive steel industry is to visualise a battle between Goliaths beneath the feet of which the whole economy would be trampled to pieces. That is why we make no suggestion—I believe no hon. Member has made the suggestion—that it is going to be possible to return to completely out and out competitive steel production.

Mr. Robson Brown: I am obliged to the hon. Member for giving way. I want to take him back to his statement on the situation in the United States of America. Could he be a little more specific, because the only information I have is that they have a central organisation for the collection of statistics, and nothing else.

Mr. Fienburgh: I am not talking about what sort of organisation they have. The formality of that organisation is very slight indeed. I was pointing to the coincidence that whenever they act they


act together; whenever they raise the price of steel beyond a certain level it goes up by the same amount throughout, in every single firm at the same time. One does not need a formal organisation to do that. It can be done over a cocktail or a highball or a telephone or at a Rotarian meeting. But it proves the point that they no longer operate completely independently or competitively.
In fact, there is inevitable centralisation in this industry, and we can have that centralisation in one of three ways. We can have cartelised monopoly of the old pattern; we can have public supervision of this cartelised monopoly, or we can have common ownership of the assets, which ensures at least that there is some central co-ordination which is answerable to the community as a whole.
Hon. Members opposite have rather belatedly cone down in favour of the middle course, as they call it. Rather belatedly they are prepared to accept some degree of public co-ordination and supervision. It is a very belated conversion indeed. It looks more like a death bed repentance than anything else, because there was no suggestion from hon. Members opposite that it was necessary publicly to supervise this industry until the industry itself was in dire straits in the inter-war years, and at that time public supervision just grew up and was not imposed by any act of any Conservative Government.
I said that we were here disinterring a corpse, which when alive saw its first life during the days of the Import Duties Advisory Committee. That Advisory Committee was never created to supervise the steel industry. It did so, however, because upon its responsibility devolved the job of deciding whether steel should be protected by a tariff or not. It agreed that steel should be protected by a tariff, but it agreed on very firm conditions. The conditions were that the industry should internally reorganise itself, rejuvenate itself and create its youth anew, and thus enable itself to face the competition of Continental producers.
The powers which resided in the hands of the Import Duties Advisory Committee were far in excess of the powers imposed on this proposed new Board, because it had the power to hit the producer where it hurt, which was in the pocket, since

it was enabled to recommend the removal of the tariff; that was a sanction far in excess of any sanction possessed by this Board. Yet, despite that power, I.D.A.C. was ignored. The suggestions that it put forward for reorganisation were ignored. The tariff was imposed in April, 1932. By June, 1932, after many discussions and many pleas by Lord May, the steel industry still refused to act; they refused to come together adequately to consider plans for reorganisation.
In March, 1933, some considerable time later still, they did form a National Reconstruction Committee, which was not charged with the job of reorganising the industry, but simply of considering the possible variations of machinery which ought to be set up ultimately to think out some reorganisation of the industry. If we are suggesting that it is possible publicly to supervise this private monopoly, it is very important to take the views of some distinguished steel masters who were concerned at that time, because from their mouths it can be proved quite adequately that there was no intention on the part of the steel industry to respond to any form of public supervision.
I am sorry to have to bring up the name of Sir William Firth again, because I know that his voice haunts many of these debates; but he had some very interesting things to say about this industry and hon. Gentlemen opposite should be interested because they pretend to bring an empirical approach to everything; they are not doctrinaire. No one can bring them better proof than their own distinguished colleagues. In February, 1934, Sir William Firth said, in connection with the attempt to reorganise the industry, that he did not feel justified in stifling his criticism by pretending to approve a scheme which was masquerading as a reconstruction scheme
… when it is entirely devoid of any factor which can bring about a reduction of cost, but, on the contrary, by quota and price arrangement will prolong the life of inefficient plants and delay the elimination of cross haulages and the centralisation of manufacture and the erection of up-to-date plants.
This was the view of one who was within the councils of hon. Members opposite, as to the attitude of the privately-owned steel industry to the demands which had been made upon it


from a public authority, that it should undertake some reorganisation. It proves that they have no intention of undertaking the prime task and responsibility which they pledged themselves to undertake as the price for tariff protection.
Mr. Henry Summers, writing in "The Times" in March, 1934, a little while afterwards—and I am sure that if hon. Gentlemen opposite did not want to listen to what was said by Sir William Firth they might be interested in this quotation—said this:
… the steel trade spent nearly two years drawing up schemes which if adopted could only prove futile and abortive. The main objects were to bolster up redundant and obsolete plants and by rings and quotas to put up costs to the consumer. … Even the majority were unwilling to do what was best for their industry.
Despite public supervision; despite the existence of a Board far stronger than the new Board which is proposed, they were not prepared to do what was required—and they did not do what was required—in the best interests of the industry.
In this particular episode of the manifestation of public control reorganisation was not carried out. Despite repeated pledges of price reduction, prices doubled. Between the creation of tariff protection and the outbreak of war they went up far quicker than the prices of raw material and labour which went into the industry. Competition was rigorously quelled and steel went on in its own way in its own time, as it has always done and as it always can do so long as it remains in private ownership.
Then there was a second attempt at control. There was the wartime control by the Ministry of Supply—a rather more direct form than that of the Import Duties Advisory Committee. In effect, however, there was no control at all, partly because Steel House moved en bloc into the Ministry of Supply, which they will do again in respect of this Board as soon as it is set up; there is no provision to see that that is not done in this Bill.
What have the other independent critics to say of this attempt at public supervision of private industry? I quote what was said by Mr. Oscar Hobson, who is no friend of ours. In May, 1940, during the war, he said that there was:
… only too good reason to fear that the control of the steel industry has not shaken

itself free from the old notions … that a balance of power must be preserved between different big producing firms"—
and he suggested that
… efficient plant must be used to capacity in priority to less efficient, irrespective of the ownership of either.
There is someone—who does not share our view of the ownership of this industry—pointing out that while it remained in private hands private interests were overweighing public interests. That was inevitably so because the Ministry of Supply were not able to control an industry which remained privately owned. Similar comments were made by the "Manchester Guardian," but I shall not trouble the House with those.
I was interested to note the plea on the part of the Minister that effective price control had been exercised in this industry for the last 20 years. In fact it was not until 1944, only eight years ago, that these controlling bodies operating in the public interest—I.D.A.C. first and the Ministry of Supply later—were able to find out the detailed mechanism of the price-fixing machinery in this industry. I quote what was said by Mr. G. N. D. Worswick, in the Bulletin of the Oxford Institute of Statistics—a very reputable source:
The fixing of steel prices by the Iron and Steel Control has been one of the most interesting, but one of the most elusive problems of the wartime economy. … Each year the Auditor-General reported that he had been unable to find out on what basis these prices were determined and each year the Public Accounts Committee attempted to press the investigation a stage further.
There was no control and no adequate investigation, or, rather, there was an investigation but nothing much could be discovered because of the impossibility of unravelling all the ramifications and seeing that the decisions taken were carried out properly whilst there was this division between an attempt at control and the actual ownership in which resided the final power of decision.
Then we had the post-war Board, when a third attempt was made at public control. As my right hon. Friend stated in his opening speech, this again was a failure. Some degree of control was possible in an expanding period, when manufacturers and producers were falling over each other to establish new productive plants. There was then a possibility of control by saying to one,


"You may" and to another, "You may not." That was a negative control by which it was, to some extent, possible to direct the development of the industry. But let us not pretend that this honeymoon period is going to carry on very much longer.
The slump in the 1920's was preceded by two things—a decline in orders in the shipping industry and deflation by the Government. We are having a repetition of those two things today.
There will always be a sub-division of objective between a Board which is trying to control in the national interest, on behalf of 50 million people, and the owners and directors of an industry whose main and prior objective is the simple one of guaranteeing dividends to the shareholders. There will be many occasions when there will be a clash between those two points of view, and whilst the ultimate ownership resides in private hands the private view will remain paramount.
My knowledge of the steel industry—in common with the entire Government Front Bench and 99 per cent. of hon. Members opposite—is one derived from external study rather than internal experience; but there is one thing I have discovered, and that is that the steel industry is the king of all industries. We have here something far more thrilling than any military display or military march-past—the sight of a furnace being tapped, or red-hot steel whipping across the floor of a rolling mill. That is one of the most thrilling of all sights. This industry should be a pride in the eyes of a nation. Let us therefore retain it in public hands and not hand it back to the money grubbers.

Orders of the Day — KENYA (SITUATION)

It being Seven o'Clock and leave having been given to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9, further Proceeding stood postponed.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) to move his Motion, I would draw the attention of the House to the scope of the debate. It takes place at Seven o'Clock on the acceptance by the Chair of a Motion to draw attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance—namely, the serious disturbances which occurred at Kirawara, Kenya, on Sunday last. That is the subject of the debate. It will not be in Order, therefore, to go beyond the incident itself and such matters as can be shown to be relevant to it. I suggested at Question time, when the matter was being discussed that perhaps a wider debate would be more in the interests of the House, for the Rules of the House are such that it is the definite matter of urgent public importance which is the subject before us now.

Mr. James Griffiths: I beg to move (under Standing Order No. 9). "That this House do now adjourn."
In opening this debate, as one who had the privilege for a short time of being Secretary of State for the Colonies, I am deeply conscious of the fact that those who take part in the debate carry a great responsibility. We have the responsibility of measuring our words, for they will have repercussions not only in Kenya but all over Africa and, indeed, all over the world.
But we equally have the responsibility that, as a House of Commons, we are the final authority for everything which happens in each one of our Colonies. I know from my own experience, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree, that it is of great importance that those people who are under our charge and for whom we are responsible—70 million of them spread all over the world—should all the time be assured that we keep a vigilant and constant watch on everything which occurs in every one of these Colonies. They are our wards and we


are the trustees, but, while recognising the responsibility to measure our words, we have also to speak frankly. They must always be able fully to understand that all their grievances and anxieties can be ventilated and debated in this House.
In making his statement this afternoon, the Secretary of State told us that the situation in Kenya has worsened in the past few weeks. That is obvious from the reports which have reached us in the Press day by day. The events of last Sunday seem to me to be the most serious which have yet occurred since the emergency began, and it is for that reason that we have taken the step, subject to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, of raising this matter immediately, while, at the same time, sharing your hope that the wider problems of Kenya can be fully discussed in the House in the not too distant future.
The Secretary of State has given us a resumé of the events which occurred on Sunday last. It begins with a meeting. I hope what I am about to say is in order, because it may appear a little irrelevant. The position is that under the emergency regulations in Kenya, public meetings have been banned. They are illegal. But although they have been banned, they are still taking place. This was a public meeting, attended, so we are informed, by 2,000 Africans.
In view of the fact that, despite the ban, public meetings are still taking place, I ask the Secretary of State whether the retention of that ban is wise. What is happening is that the only meetings being held are illegal meetings, and for people among the Kikuyu and elsewhere illegal meetings, and the secrecy of them, have an attraction and fascination which draws people to them and creates an emotional state which will always make them very dangerous indeed.
Moreover, as they are attending these illegal meetings, the only voices which the Africans hear now are the voices of the Mau Mau leaders. When we debated this matter a few weeks ago, I urged the Secretary of State to accept the offer which had been made by the leaders of the Africans. They have their own representatives on the Legislative Council, they have their member of the Executive Council; there is a member of the Legislative Council for this area. All of them are prevented from speaking to their people.
The leaders of the Kenya Africa Union told the Governor and the Government, and if my memory serves me right also told the Secretary of State when he met them, that they were very anxious to have opportunities of addressing the Kikuyu. They were anxious to have the opportunity, and the permission which was essential in view of the banning of public meetings, to go to this area to speak to the African people, to tell them that they were determined to co-operate with the Government to root out Mau Mau and to rally together those Africans who are loyal and who are opposed to Mau Mau. That offer was rejected, and I think it was a profound mistake to reject it.
We have left these people without leaders and without an organisation; we have left them entirely to the mercy of the only people who talk to them—the leaders of the Mau Mau. In spite of all the efforts which we have made and of all the powers which are available to the Government, and which are being used, to prevent these meetings from being held, they are still being held. There were 2,000 at the meeting on Sunday and there may be another meeting next Sunday. Is it not clear that as long as these meetings are held, every one is a potential Kirawara. If we have a succession of incidents of this kind, they may do irrevocable damage to the whole of our prospects in Kenya and have many serious repercussions over the whole of the African Continent.
I therefore say that the events of last Sunday, in my view, make it imperative that further reconsideration should be given, first, to the policy of banning all public meetings and, secondly, to the offer which has been made by the leaders of the African people, the acceptance of which would enable them to go and talk to the people and rally together the loyal Africans to keep them away from Mau Mau. If we do not do these things, I am afraid that what happened last Sunday may have its successors in days to come, with untold damage to our prestige and to all the hopes we have in Africa.
I come to the events of last Sunday and to the statement which the Secretary of State made this afternoon. He told us that news was received from a patrol of police that a meeting was being held in this area of Kirawara. I want to ask the Secretary of State who received


the news and who made all the decisions afterwards? The patrol reported that there was a meeting of 2,000 people. As far as I am aware from the Press reports—and the Secretary of State said nothing this afternoon to contradict it—these 2,000 Africans were unarmed.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Oliver Lyttelton): The right hon. Gentleman has asked me to intervene. I do not want to do so unless he wishes it. They were armed with long knives. Armed is perhaps an equivocal expression, but they were armed with long knives.

Mr. Frederic Harris: The panga.

Mr. Lyttelton: They were not all armed, but a large number were.

Mr. Griffiths: Some of them, then, had these panga—to give them the name which they give to those knives. Others were unarmed. A patrol of police saw them and then reported that event to someone. What I want to ask the Secretary of State is this: Who is responsible—what level of officer is responsible—for deciding what takes place when information of this kind is received? That is a very grave decision.
What happened was that this was reported to someone, who received the report, and who then acted—who made the decision. It was decided to send a force of three European officers and 23 Askaris—African policemen—all of them armed, to the meeting. When they got to the meeting it was quite clear that approaches were made to the person who was addressing the meeting and who was eventually arrested; and presumably the others. Were the police accompanied by a civilian officer able to speak the African language, able to converse with them fully and to reason with them?
It seems to me that what should have happened is that there should have been an officer there, that every attempt should have been made to seek to get the meeting dispersed before armed police went there. That seems to me to be the essence of wise leadership in circumstances of this kind. I should, therefore, like to ask the Secretary of State whethere there was a district officer or a provincial officer or an officer of the Kenya Government other than police officers there, and whether it would not have been better if that officer

had first of all gone to the meeting, and sought to interview the leaders, and sought to persuade them to disperse, so leaving the police with their arms as the last resort instead of the first.
From a reading of what has taken place, and from what the Secretary of State said today, it seems to me quite clear that this patrol of police found the meeting taking place and reported that to the police headquarters, that an inspector, with the forces I have already mentioned, went to the meeting, that the leader was arrested. We are not told whether any effort was made first of all to secure a peaceful dispersion of those who had gathered together.
I make the point again, that here we are depriving ourselves, in what, I know, is a very difficult task, of the services of the African leaders. If we had accepted this offer of the co-operation of the African leaders, then, in circumstances of this kind, it might have been possible for one of those African leaders to have gone to this meeting and used his influence to disperse them before these very tragic events occurred. Instead of which the police, as I understand it, were the first to arrive. They asked the crowd to disperse; they refused; the leader was arrested; then the crowd was warned; and eventually these very tragic events took place.
Will the Secretary of State tell us, who, in circumstances of this kind, makes these decisions? I think that with a decision of such gravity, with such consequences—what the consequences are we do not know yet, but they may indeed be very grave—we are entitled to know who is the officer, of what level is the officer, who is responsible for deciding whether the police go to a meeting of this kind in these circumstances.
I now come—I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House, but only want to put these questions—to what we have to do at this moment, these tragic events having occurred. The last report I have seen—it may be uncorroborated—is that 21 Africans are now dead and that about 27 have been wounded. This news will spread. It will spread throughout Africa. It will spread elsewhere. We are now in danger—this illustrates the danger which we must seek to avoid, and the Secretary of State today was quite frank with the House, for he


admitted the danger, which, I think, has been added to by what happened last Sunday—of converting what began, or what could have begun, as a struggle of all the decent, moderate, loyal people, Africans, Asians, and Europeans together, against Mau Mau, into a Black-White struggle. That is the most serious thing of all. That is what has happened from this sequence of events.
When we first discussed these things in the House a few weeks ago the Secretary of State said—and I was very glad to know—and the Governor and others who have spoken about this have made it abundantly clear, too, that Mau Mau would have represented but a very small proportion of the African people—indeed, a very small proportion of the Kikuyu—and that most of the Africans were opposed to the Mau Mau: they were being frightened by them; they were being terrorised by them; they did not belong to them; and they wanted to resist them.
It is quite clear now that we have left them leaderless, voiceless, without an organisation. Their own Members of Parliament are prevented from going to see them. Their own leaders are prevented from going to see them. We are left with these meetings, which are illegal and have a horrible fascination. The result is we are now in grave danger of driving all the Kikuyu people into the hands of the Mau Mau. That is the danger I see; and it is a very grave one.
I hope, therefore, that some of the suggestions I have made—the lifting of the ban on public meetings, the acceptance of the offer of the African leaders, and the full use of their services which they have so readily offered—may be considered as possible means to rally the African people.
I want to make two other suggestions. I put these very seriously to the Secretary of State. We are responsible, and it is very important that we should send from this House, and send as quickly as we may, a message that we are deeply concerned at the worsening of the situation, that we are deeply concerned about what happened last Sunday, and that we are determined to find out ourselves exactly what happened. I was confronted, as Secretary of State, with two situations of this kind. There are two precedents I can

give. One occurred just before I became Secretary of State. There was a strike in the Enugu district of Nigeria, and a series of very unhappy events led to shooting by the police and created a dangerous, explosive situation.
My predecessor, Mr. Arthur Creech Jones, acted at once. He announced in the House—and the announcement went to Africa—that he was proposing to set up an independent inquiry to make a full investigation into the circumstances and to bring back a report to him. The report came, and then eventually, after the General Election, during the time when I was Secretary of State, there was full investigation. The very announcement that we would investigate steadied people everywhere. There was an awareness of our determination to find out the facts—that if there had been mistakes, if the policy or the arrangements had been wrong, we would investigate them to find out, and, after that, put them right.
I would urge the Secretary of State to consider—I hope he will tell us that he will consider it favourably—the appointment of a commission to go immediately to Kenya to make the fullest investigation into what happened at Kirawara last Sunday. Does the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Beresford Craddock) want to interject? I do not know. I am putting forward, responsibly, a serious suggestion. I am suggesting an inquiry, based upon my own experience. Shortly after the events that occurred in Enugu, further events occurred in Singapore, and they had their repercussions. There are rights and wrongs, but, if I may be allowed to say so, I am not without experience of matters of this kind.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: I do not deny the right hon. Gentleman's experience, but, if I may say so, I think that in these matters I have a much wider experience that the right hon. Gentleman and I say quite frankly that to have a commission going out to investigate would do much more harm than good. What we must do in this House is to back up the European administration in Kenya.

Mr. Griffiths: This evening, in accordance with Mr. Speaker's Ruling, I am confining myself to the incidents which occurred on Sunday, to the general situation in Kenya and our attitude towards it.
Last Friday we said that we would support the Government in all measures that were necessary and essential to put down Mau Mau. At the same time, we urged that every measure should be taken to remove genuine grievances. I have, therefore, not ventured into other matters.
I know that the hon. Gentleman's experience of East Africa is much wider and longer than mine, and I am sure he realises, from the news of what happened last Sunday, what the effect would be on the people there of appointing a commission to investigate and to inquire. It may be that everything that could be done to prevent it was done, but he knows very well that events of this kind are bound to lead to a sense of grievance, and for that reason I urge this all the stronger. I know that when I had to act, in circumstances not unlike this, the very announcement that a commission of this kind was being sent out had a steadying effect upon everyone.
I ask the Secretary of State to reconsider the answer he gave this afternoon to my suggestion, which I have repeated more than once—and I am still convinced it is a wise suggestion, apart from these incidents in Kenya—that a delegation of Members of Parliament from all parties should go out to Kenya. We are all gravely concerned about what is happening in Kenya. It is a tragedy. Now that we are in the midst of all this it seems to me to be of the utmost importance that the House of Commons should send out a message saying that we are concerned for the welfare of all the people. While the Executive have these extraordinary powers, which I will not discuss now, we have a duty to ensure that we keep vigilant watch on the use of these extraordinary powers.
Someone has said that Kenya may be the last chance we have in Africa of working out a democratic constitution in a country in which all races co-operate together. We are determined to put down Mau Mau, but we have a solemn duty to prevent this from becoming a racial conflict which may destroy the last chance we have in Africa.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Dodds-Parker: I am sure that hon. Members on both sides will agree with a great deal of what the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has said. He

has put his finger on the point, that we are all deeply distressed at the events in Kenya, particularly this latest tragedy last Sunday. We have often been told that this is the last chance, but most of us will always go on trying to find a way out of what I believe is today the fundamental problem of humanity, and that is to get the race relationship in various parts of the world correct, particularly, if I may say so, in Africa.
I am afraid that I was not here earlier this afternoon, and therefore did not have the advantage of hearing what was then said. I have heard you, Mr. Speaker, say that this debate is a narrow one, but I should just like to follow one or two of the points made by the right hon. Gentleman. I think that most of the suggestions he made have been considered by many hon. Members on both sides, to see how we can help in the circumstances with which we are faced in Kenya today, but we must be very careful in this House against resentment overseas of peoples of all communities when, directly something happens, we send hon. Members of the House to investigate. Today we are clearly in a transitional period. We are all trying to get greater self-government in these territories overseas, and unless these suggestions are carefully handled there may be resentment overseas that we in this House should still try to keep 100 per cent. responsibility for the details of administration. That is not for a moment to say that we have not the deepest interest in what is going on and would not like to make our contribution.
We must not think that we hold the key to the future of these countries by making a quick trip there from this country—especially any of us who have little or no knowledge about these territories, rather than those members of the administration who have devoted their lives to these territories, who have done their best to establish good relations between the four main communities in East Africa, and who may resent suggestions such as that made by the right hon. Gentleman—I am certain in all good faith.
We have so little information about what happened last Sunday that I, for one, find it very difficult to comment in any detail. The right hon. Gentleman has


put his comments in the form of questions to my right hon. Friend, and until he gives us further information, which at this early stage, only 48 hours after the events, may not be available, it is very difficult to discuss what happened last Sunday. I should, however, like to say just one word in support of whoever had to take the decision to open fire. It is obviously desirable that such a decision should be taken by highly responsible and senior officials, but in a territory the size of Kenya, and in an area the size of the Kikuyu Reserve, it is obviously impossible to have senior officials who could possibly fulfil all the standards which we and they would desire.
We must realise that the individual concerned may be relatively junior, and that he had this terrifying spectacle of the approach of 2,000 Africans armed with pangas, which, as anyone who has seen some of the pictures of the multilations carried out with them will realise, are the most terrifying weapons. In some ways they are reminiscent of the Middle Ages, and make one realise how much more frightening war must have been when one saw people armed with such weapons, rather than being opposed by the modern bullets or shells which may be fired from a long distance off.
I ask hon. Members opposite to place themselves in the position of whoever was responsible. From the information I have, there were three European officers and 20 African police; knowing what they know, and what few of us do, of the mutilations which are carried out with this weapon, and they had to take this decision. Perhaps I speak with some feeling, because, if I may be forgiven this personal interjection, in the years before the war I was myself faced with this sort of situation, although nothing like so serious as this one. In this decision, I can sympathise with the individual concerned, and I hope that we shall say nothing in this debate that will undermine the confidence of those individuals who have some of the most desperately serious tasks in Africa today.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: I wonder if the hon. Member has seen one of the reports of this incident? I do not make myself responsible for it, and I do not know anything about it, but

one of the reports stated that this illegal meeting, having been called upon to disperse, was left with only one way to go because all the other ways of egress had been stopped up, and when they had been told to go and were left with only one direction in which to go, would he still think that the order to fire was justified.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Nothing I have said would be changed if what the hon. Gentleman said was true. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] No. If the individuals had been peacefully inclined, they would not have advanced on the police patrol. It is not difficult to realise the position of 25 people surrounded by 2,000. I cannot see how that changes what I have said about the responsibility on the individual.

Mr. Silverman: I am afraid that I did not make myself clear. I do not know whether the report is true, but the report, as I read it, was that the people had been told not to stay at the meeting because it was illegal, but to go, and they were left with only one direction in which to move. Does the hon. Member really say that when they are told to move and are left with only one direction in which to go, one is entitled to fire on them because they move in the only direction left open to them?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I said nothing of the sort. Let us imagine the circumstances. If that crowd was dispersing peacefully, I am certain that none of those responsible would have given the order to fire. It was not a question of a peaceful dispersal, but, from all the accounts I have seen, an attack upon the police patrol.

Mr. S. N. Evans: May I ask the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) where we can read this report? It has not come to my notice, and I should be interested to read it.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I hope he will.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): May I appeal to hon. Members on both sides of the House not to make interruptions in speeches, but to wait until called upon to make their own speeches, except when interruptions are necessary to clear up some ambiguity in the debate.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I hope that in the course of the debate the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne will put the source of his information on the records of this House. I have accepted, for the purpose of the debate, what he has said as being true, but that does not alter one bit the point which I was making.
The information available to the House is still pretty slender on this event, and on Mau Mau in general. Many cases which may be relevant to this tragic event of last Sunday are sub judice, and therefore one must be extremely careful of what one says on this occasion. It is clear that the events which led up to last Sunday's occurrence are based on causes going back many months and even years. Yet, so far as know, the information available to this House and to the country is pretty slender.
I think that the whole of the post-war period in Kenya, as elsewhere, has been extremely overcrowded. As a result of the tremendous rate at which Africa has expanded in the last 60 years, particularly East Africa, it is a fact, tragic though it may be, that there have been growing pains, and there has been a psychological impact on numbers of Africans in different parts of Africa which have led to a reaction which is not always favourable. As is well known to those who have worked in Africa, the tribes differ one from another, just as in North-Western Europe the tribes are emotionally different. I think that the impact on some of these tribes has been rather unfortunate. Others, so far as my information goes, have not been deeply affected. But the events of the last few weeks have obviously been well organised. There have been thefts of arms and sudden outbreaks of violence, attacks on loyal chiefs and—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that at the beginning of this debate it was said that it was to be a narrow debate confined to the events of the Sunday.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I was trying to keep to that somewhat narrow point in following some of the remarks put by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and I was trying to show how possibly, in my limited experience, the events of last Sunday may have been based on events

which occurred further back in the history of that part of the world.
I think that one thing which has not been realised is that it is a tremendous tribute to the British system of Government by persuasion and administration in that part of Africa that between Khartoum and the Union of South Africa, until the Lancashire Fusiliers came in, there has not been a British battalion in 3,000 miles—as far as from here to Moscow—to maintain law and order.
I think that the work done by the local administration is not always sufficiently appreciated. I think that there has been a tremendous amount of overwork on all the administration. For better or worse, they have had economic development to supervise—in addition to the results of the war, and of the psychological growing pains to which I have alluded. It is a sad fact, leading up to the events of last Sunday and the months before, that the district administration has been obviously overloaded. The right hon. Gentleman has asked for details concerning who has been responsible. Whoever it is, I am sure that it is someone who has been doing his utmost for his people as a whole, despite the difficulties of office work and the general discouragement that goes on, largely by necessity, of the individuals who need free time to travel, sometimes by animal or on foot, to get to know their people. To what extent it is true, as I have seen in one or two reports, that there has not been adequate political officering—it is not the fault of the local administration.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that the hon. Member is getting a little wide of this Adjournment Motion.

Mr. Tom Driberg: With great respect to yourself, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, did not Mr. Speaker rule that the debate should be confined to the events of last Sunday and matters relevant thereto. I suggest that the events did not occur in a vacuum, and that most of what the hon. Member has been saying is perfectly relevant.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The ruling is confined to the events of last Sunday and matters relevant thereto, but the hon. Member must not travel too wide of the events of last Sunday.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I am grateful for your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I will leave that point.
I should like to stress again, as I have done in the course of the last few weeks, that, in this difficult situation all over Africa, local administration should be given a certain amount of consideration and that there is a case for the Governor, as well as the district officer, the agricultural officer and others to spend more time with their people and not be overloaded with central government and office work. I think that if circumstances had permitted that, much of this trouble might have been avoided.
I will, therefore, come to my concluding points, and I support what the right hon. Gentleman said, that we must on both sides of the House support the local administration in restoring law and order, or, as he called it the other day, restoring law and peace. It may be said that this is a somewhat wider aim, but, whatever the words may mean, we must support the restoration of law and order.
A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House have, in imagination, put themselves in the shoes of individuals, in Kenya, living scores of miles from a telephone, with the fear which has been engendered by the events of the last few weeks. It is not only Europeans who are fearful. A great number of Asians are fearful, too. A great number of loyal and moderate Africans are also fearful, and, from the information which I have, they have so far paid a large part of the penalty for the disturbances. It seems at the moment that the first target of the Mau Mau individuals is to go for the loyal chiefs and the natural leaders of these people. That is another point which makes me think that this action is essentially organised.
I am certain that we must make it clear that the Commission which is to go to East Africa is in no way connected directly with the events of Mau Mau. From time to time it is necessary and good to send out Commissions to inquire into certain big problems, but the events of last Sunday and the horrors of the last few weeks must be dealt with on their own, and no impression must be given that any other action by the Government at home or in Kenya in any way condones the murders of the foulest type, not just of Europeans and of Asians, but of

Africans, too. It should not be missed that so far this has been an all-racial affair and that it has been a matter of individuals under Mau Mau against the best elements of the other three races.
I hope that nothing will be said in this House to give any impression that we think that, although the danger may exist, there is any justification for trying to suggest that this is purely a colour action. I hope that when we have further information, from my right hon. Friend and elsewhere, it will show that what I have said in this respect is true.

7.43 p.m.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: No one who has recently been in Kenya will want to say a word in this debate which will intensify racial feeling there. One is very conscious of European farmers, often miles distant from each other, who, in the night hours, are now waiting anxiously, isolated, in case they may be attacked.
One is very conscious, too, that a situation may arise there which may not only become an effort to repress violence and to repress Mau Mau, but may also become action against the whole Kikuyu tribe. Anyone with any knowledge at all of Kenya knows how disastrous that would be, disastrous not only to the African population but also to the future of the European population, and how all of us must seek to avoid it. When I read of what took place there last Sunday, my first feeling was of the tragedy of it in its effect upon the efforts which men and women of all four races in Kenya are today making to find a basis for harmonious relations in the future.
Last Sunday, there was an illegal meeting. Apparently, a speech was being made to it, urging violence. I have been in the very district where the meeting was held. After an isolated clash with local police, a message was sent to Thika, and a regular inspector and two European inspectors who have been in the Kenya Police Reserve for only a short time, with Askaris, went to the scene.
The first point which I want to make about this event is that I believe we are placing too great a responsibility on men of very young age and of very short experience when they are faced by this situation. The three European officers were aged 22, 21 and 20. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shocking."] Two of the officers


were only recently recruited into the Kenya Police Reserve. One had been a member for only six weeks and the second had been a member for only one month.
From my own experience, I have a very great sense of sympathy with those young men. I know that they have joined the Kenya Police Reserve because they want to protect their families, who are often isolated in the way in which I have described, but I say to the Colonial Secretary that neither he nor the Government of Kenya ought to place the responsibility for decisions which may have an appalling effect upon race relations in Kenya upon men of that tender age and of that very recent experience.
I ask the right hon. Gentleman to make sure, as the first result of our debate tonight, that men of experience and of responsibility shall be in every district, to whom the call will be sent in situations of this kind, instead of leaving the decisions to the officers of youth and of very small experience who were responsible for the decisions in this case.

Brigadier Christopher Peto: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us where he got the information which he is now giving us about the ages and the experience of these men?

Mr. Fenner Brockway: I am quoting from the report in "The Times" of today. It gives the names of Inspector W. R. McGrath Blackwell, who, I understand, is a regular member of the force, and gives his age as 22; Mr. J. S. A. Weaving, who is 21, and who volunteered for the Kenya Police Reserve only six weeks ago; and Mr. I. D. St. G. Lindsay, who is only 20 and who has been in the police force for one month only.

Mr. F. Harris: I am sure that the hon. Member is not trying to mislead the House, but I think some hon. Members are misunderstanding the position. The fact that these men have only been in the Police Reserve for one month or for six months is because the Europeans in Kenya have recently joined the Police Reserve to protect the country, and it would be very unfortunate if there was any misunderstanding here about the matter.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: I think the House understood the point I was putting. The point I am making is one of absolute

sympathy with these young men. If I may say so, they protected me only a few weeks ago. I look back at this moment to the time when one of these young men, I think probably still in his teens, and who was an officer, came to me to announce that because a report had been received that a European was leaving Nairobi to murder me protection around the house was to be increased by one non-commissioned officer and six Askaris.
The young man was very nervous and so inexperienced that he could hardly speak to me. Indeed, he gave to me the instructions that he ought to have been giving to the local police superintendent. I am not saying that out of any attitude of contempt for these young men, but out of sympathy for their position. I am saying that they ought not to be in that position, and I am asking the Secretary of State for the Colonies to make sure that in every effective district in Kenya a responsible officer of age and experience shall be left in charge so that when a situation arises we shall feel at least that clashes, woundings and even deaths have not taken place because of either the age or inexperience of the officers concerned.
I want to keep strictly to the point which we are discussing in this debate, and, therefore, I want to emphasise what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), that the tragedy of this situation is that the only meetings which are allowed are illegal meetings. I know the present African leaders. I know the leaders of the Kenya Africa Union. One of them is Mr. Odede, the President, who is a teacher at Makerere College. He is universally respected, one who was selected by the Governor to be a member of the Legislative Council. The man belongs to the Christian church and interprets the Christian teaching as being opposed to the methods of violence.
Mr. Awori is another member of the Legislative Council, selected by the Governor for that position. Obviously, the Governor had trust and confidence in him. He is also a member of the Christian community. The third member is the Secretary, Mr. Joseph Murumbi. He is the ablest African I have ever met from any African community. He is a man who is entirely constructive in his approach, and one who is almost broken by the turn of events among the Kikuyu.
Yet when these three men, now the leaders of the Kenya Africa Union, who are regarded with confidence, trust and even pride by thousands of Africans, went to the Governor and to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in Nairobi to offer to go themselves to the Kikuyu people and dissuade them from violence and encourage them to live peaceably, the offer was refused.

Mr. Lyttelton: I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman more than is necessary, but I should state that Mr. Odede told me personally at that meeting that he was against the holding of public meetings at that time and for some time ahead.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: I accept that statement by the right hon. Gentleman, but I know that I met Mr. Odede before and after he met the right hon. Gentleman, and was informed that the offer to speak to these people had been turned down by the Government of Kenya.
May I quote one other illustration as evidence? My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) and I, when we were in Nairobi, wanted to make our contribution to the campaign against violence and against membership of Mau Mau. The three African leaders Ito whom I have referred, and European and Asian leaders proposed to me that I should ask the Governor for permission to broadcast against violence. The Governor did not accept that suggestion. Then we asked the leaders of the Kenya Africa Union whether they would distribute among their people an appeal if we wrote one in the interests of peace. I want to read a passage from that appeal, which was sent out by the Kenya Africa Union leaders to all their membership, to indicate—

Mr. Lyttelton: On a point of order.

Mr. S. Silverman: What is the right hon. Gentleman afraid of?

Mr. Lyttelton: This appears to be very—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I have a perfect right to raise a point of order. This appears to me to be going very wide of the incidents on Sunday. I do not object to that in any way, but I only want to say that if the member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) is

allowed to go as far as those matters I hope that I may be allowed to reply equally widely.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. Speaker's Ruling, at the beginning of the debate, was quite clear. It was that the debate was limited to the events on Sunday and anything that was relevant to those events. I understood that the hon. Member was developing an argument in regard to an illegal meeting, but he must not travel too wide of that subject.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: I was directing my argument to the fact that the gathering which was broken up with loss of life on Sunday was an illegal meeting. My appeal was that public meetings should be permitted so that this kind of incident would be less likely to occur. And I was indicating to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the responsible leaders of the African organisation, if they had the opportunity to go to their people, would be able to make the appeal against violence. I will, therefore, read the extract:
We beg you to remain calm in this difficult period. Cruelty and violence are wicked things. Beware of those who preach a doctrine of hate or a doctrine of violence whether in political, social or religious affairs. Those who in any circumstances advocate a resort to violence, even in circumstances of extreme provocation, are at this moment the real enemies of the cause of the African people not only in Kenya but all over this great continent. We accept the Christian ethic of goodwill towards all. So do many of you. But we appeal to you in the common belief in the humanitarian ethic for tolerance and understanding. Fear only fear. Hate only hate.
Yet the men who deeply and sincerely hold that conviction are now silenced by the Kenya Government, with the endorsement of the right hon. Gentleman, from making that kind of appeal to the Kikuyu people. Instead, the right hon. Gentleman is departing on a course which is making the action of the Government, not only against Mau Mau and those who advocate violence, but against the entire Kikuyu people, very dangerous for future racial relations in Africa.
I conclude on this point. The hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) urged that we ought to be careful about intervening in affairs in Kenya because it is felt there that they are developing towards self-government. I want to see Kenya developing towards self-government—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is now travelling wider than the limits of the debate.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: I was only replying to the point made by the hon. Member, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Yes, but I did seek to call the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) to order because he was travelling widely.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: Then I shall be content to accept your Ruling on that point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and will make my appeal to the House, and not only to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. We are at a moment of the parting of the ways in Africa. It is racial conflict or racial co-operation, and it depends upon the policy which this Government and the Government of Kenya now pursue in which of those two directions we shall be moving in the coming years.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. William Teeling: I must confess that I am taking part in this debate with deep regret today, and I am equally regretful that the debate has taken place at all. It is quite true that this is a matter about which everybody should be considerably concerned, but I cannot see why the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), who wanted to deal with this question, could not have done so privately by seeing the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Equally, I cannot see why the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) could not have done the same. Although we may think that only ourselves here and the public in England will hear what has gone on tonight, in other parts of the world, and of course in Kenya, people will read extracts in the Press—most certainly not HANSARD—and a large number of them will not understand why we are keeping to this one, narrow point tonight.
Many will ask why we should be talking only about the shooting of so many Mau Mau Africans when so many other Africans and so many whites have been not only shot but hacked to pieces over the last few months. It is true that Mr. Speaker has allowed that we can discuss matters relevant to the event of last Sunday, but it is difficult to deal with that in a satisfactory manner. This is such a terribly serious subject, with possibly

tremendous repercussions in other parts of the world, that I cannot see why it should be brought up in these narrow terms tonight and pressed by the Opposition.
Outside, and especially in Kenya, this will be looked on as a question of party politics. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am afraid it will. I have been out there just as much as the hon. Member for Eton and Slough, and quite recently, and I know how strong the feelings are there at the moment. At one house where I stayed a daughter has since been shot. Living two or three miles away are the grandparents aged 93 and 87. Are they not frightened? Are their relatives not worried about what may happen to them? Is not everybody in a state of the most appalling tension out there? Why then bring this matter up in this narrow way?
However, we have to discuss it on those lines, and again I cannot see why the hon. Member for Eton and Slough brought up the question of the three young men aged 20, 21 and 22. Men of 20, 21 and 22 in many parts of the world—and British ones too—are quite capable of looking after the interests of the Askaris who are with them, and also of looking after their families. They had quite good instructions. They have carried them out. We are told tonight on the tape that the person they arrested who was organising the 2,000 against them was himself only a youth. He was presumably not much older—

Mr. F. Harris: Eighteen.

Mr. Teeling: I am told he is only 18. It seems to me there is no argument then at all. We know that all these people have to be looked after. It is far better that the younger people should go out and try to do the work than that the older ones should do it. The younger people are just as fair-minded as anybody else. When they find themselves with 2,000 people coming against them, what can they do? We are told by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) that there was no other way for the 2,000 to go.

Mr. S. Silverman: I did not say that.

Mr. Teeling: The hon. Member said he had got it from some newspaper. I wish he would tell us which one. No? The hon. Member is keeping it to himself? I believe that my right hon.


Friend will point out that this was not the case. Anyway, when it is a question of 2,000 people against, at the most, 27, surely there is nothing much else that the poor devils could do than shoot and try to stop the 27 being killed? I cannot see why the hon. Gentleman brought up the ages of these boys. He could have done it for no other reason than to try to make people genuinely shocked and horrified, as one could hear they were from the noises made by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Why should they be? They are not frightened when young men of 21 become officers and fight in wartime—

Mr. A. C. Manuel: After a month's training?

Mr. Teeling: They are all right to defend people. Then why should they not be all right in Kenya? I am sorry, I cannot have any sympathy with that argument. There are people in Kenya who are loyal citizens, who are friendly towards this country and willing to work with us, but I am sure there are moments, when they hear speeches like those made by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite this evening, when they will wonder whether we are not getting back to the old colonial times when the United States broke away from us. We were then telling the white people and the other people out there just, roughly speaking, exactly where they got off, and they went off.
In Kenya the members of the Legislative Councils are themselves elected people. One or two, I believe, were Labour candidates who were defeated in this country and have gone out there and are often quoted from the other side. There are large numbers of people there who are conceited enough to think that they know just as much about how to interpret rules and laws as the people in this House.
The right hon. Gentleman wants a commission to go out from this country. If there is to be a commission, why should it not be from out there? Why should not the inquiry be made by people there? Are we suggesting that the Governor and the others are no good?

Mr. J. Griffiths: The Secretary of State is the only one who can order an inquiry. I do not suggest that the commission should be confined to Members of this House. The Enugu Commission of Inquiry included two Africans from Africa.

Mr. Teeling: I am not talking about the Royal Commission, but about the commission which, the right hon. Gentleman suggests, should go out now to discuss this problem. Why on earth should it have to come from this House?

Mr. Griffiths: The Secretary of State is the responsible Minister. Only he could order an inquiry of this kind.

Mr. Teeling: Let him order it, but by all means let him order it from people out there and not from people coming out from the House of Commons.
The right hon. Gentleman has brought up this point. He happens to have a friend out there—at any rate, I met a gentleman who told me that he had a great admiration for the right hon. Gentleman and lunched with him at the House here and met many Members of Parliament with him. I refer to Sir Alfred Vincent, who has just written a letter in the "Daily Telegraph" practically on this very subject. It is appropriate, therefore, that I quote from his words in last Friday's "Daily Telegraph":
It may be the suggestion was made"—
that was, the suggestion that a delegation should go out from here; the remarks apply equally as far as a commission is concerned—
on the spur of the moment but we in the Colonies have suffered enough from outside interference from all sorts of 'well-meaning' people and others, and especially from Members of the House of Commons. Have we not a Governor, a Judiciary and a Legislative Council and has not the British Government a Colonial Secretary?
I know that Mr. Griffiths would be the last deliberately to give offence by making any such suggestion, and I feel that on reflection he will agree with me that the high standard maintained by the Kenya European members of the Legislative Council compares very favourably with, and surpasses in many instances, the standard set by a number of Members of the House of Commons. Certainly their sense of responsibility and restraint, especially in the present trying circumstances, could not have been better.


That comes from a gentleman who, I know, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly considers to be a very knowledgeable and level-headed person in Kenya. His remarks would apply equally to the commission that the right hon. Gentleman suggests should go out. If there is a suggestion that some judicial inquiry should be made about what has happened, it equally seems to me utterly inappropriate that we should be discussing the matter here at present. In fact, it is quite wrong.
We have been told by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough that the way to stop these shootings is to allow public meetings again to take place and to allow the three gentlemen to whom he referred to go out and meet the members of the Kikuyu tribe. The hon. Member has told us more or less what he thinks they are going to say. My right hon. Friend has interrupted and pointed out that practically the exact opposite—at any rate, as regards the holding of public meetings—was said by one of them to him. [An HON. MEMBER: "The chief one."] That was said to my right hon. Friend by the chief one, the leader of the three mentioned by the hon. Member.
That makes us begin to doubt what exactly these people say. I am quite certain that many of the things that have been said to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough, whose charming nature is such that he believes almost anything he is told—[HON. MEMBERS: "Sometimes."] Indeed, I have heard of amazing things he has listened to and believed out in Kenya. Many of the things said to him are probably quite different from what is said to other people.
As I mentioned in the House only a fortnight ago, when Jomo Kenyatta discussed things with me he said what must be very different things from the sort of things he used to say to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough. I do not believe that we can really be certain what they did mean. If they were to go to a public meeting now, if a public meeting was held, it might well be like when Mr. Mathu went—I believe also with Jomo Kenyatta—to address something like 30,000 people and had promised to tell them to give up Mau Mau and to stop having anything to do with it. For some reason, when they

got to the meeting, they never discussed that thing at all. No, I do not see that this is at all the moment for public meetings—in fact, far from it.
The right hon. Member for Llanelly has been saying that that is the only way, and that the African Union are pretty well the only people who can talk to these people. Nobody seems to remember or to think at present of the existence of the Christian churches in Kenya. They were there before all this started. The mission chapels and churches are in all the reserves and areas. They are still there. The priests are still there. The protestant clergy are there, and there are many worth while African Christians there also. Do not they ever preach to them on Sundays? Is nothing ever said to them from the pulpit about law and order and about keeping it? All these are things that when said to them ought to be able to stop them from bringing together their 2,000 people.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Does the hon. Member recall the statement the other day by the Colonial Secretary that one of the very causes of these outbreaks of Mau Mau was the suppression, he alleged, by the Christian churches and their missionaries of the ritual dances of the tribe.

Mr. Teeling: I do not quite see what that would have to do with it. If a person is a Christian it is a perfectly good idea that he should give up these ritual dances, and that does not prevent the Christian missionaries from still having their supporters as they have all over the country. Those supporters go and listen to them and hear them preaching, among other things, that they should not attack the Government and that they should not do all the sort of things that the hon. Member for Eton and Slough himself wanted to broadcast.

Mr. M. Follick: The hon. Member speaks about suppressing ritual dancing—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Hon. Members cannot be allowed to pursue ritual dancing in this debate.

Mr. Follick: On a point of order. I had quite an important point to make. Will you allow me to put it, Mr. Deputy-Speaker?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member may very well have had an important point, but ritual dancing is not part of this debate.

Mr. Teeling: As I should like to say—

Mr. Follick: Ritual dancing has been allowed for 300 years in the Christian churches of Mexico.

Mr. Teeling: It should be remembered that there is an approach, and a definite approach that can be made, not towards party or political propaganda, but towards the keeping of law and order and towards their being no violent or fierce attacks on anybody; and this can come from the Christian churches.
The right hon. Gentleman said that this issue is liable to be a question of White versus Black. There is no need for that whatsoever. The rules and regulations that have been passed by the Legislative Council, and permitted by the Colonial Secretary, give the powers which are being used, and many of us have wondered when they were going to be used. The wandering about of police and troops over districts has frightened many Africans who were supporting us and who have been wondering whether the Mau Mau people would not be allowed to come back eventually and to punish and attack them while the police went elsewhere. Many of us believe that the only way now to stop this and not to have the Africans of the Kikuyu tribe laughing at us by having so many police and troops wandering about and doing nothing, is to be absolutely determined and, where necessary, to take over the cattle, as we did the other day, and to warn these people that if they attack us, the police and troops must fire. These things must be done.
It is not going to be a question of White versus Black. There are many Africans at present working with us. One has only to go out in Nairobi and elsewhere at night to find just as many Indians as Whites acting as special constables. The Africans all over the world are not only watching to see what the Kikuyus do and whether, in a sense, they get away with it, but to see whether the loyal Africans who support law and order and who support the Whites are protected and defended. If so, the other Africans

will respect us. If not, they will simply laugh at us and think that we are worthless.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. S. N. Evans: The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Teeling) is quite entitled to urge the necessity for a restoration of law and order in Kenya, and in that we are with him 100 per cent. But what he is not entitled to do is to suggest that this Motion has been moved this evening for the purpose of serving party political interests. That was a very wrong thing for him to say, and I very much hope that my friends in Kenya—and I was there 18 months ago as a member of a Parliamentary delegation—will not believe that.

Mr. Teeling: I think the hon. Gentleman is wrong there. What I pointed out was that I did not think this was the moment for such a narrow discussion, and that the points in the narrow discussion could quite easily have been raised privately by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Mr. Evans: I agree that the debate is narrow, but before he left the Chair, Mr. Speaker spoke of the events of last Sunday and of matters relevant thereto. I must say, as he has been attacked, that my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) has been very statesmanlike since his return from Africa. He and I have not always seen eye to eye on African affairs—we have fought each other in another part of this House—but I thought his articles in the "Daily Herald" last week were fair and objective.
While, as I said earlier, we are at one with the Government in the attempt now being made to restore law and order in Kenya, I think we ought to be careful in indicting each other, even by inference, because it would be a wretched thing if the impression got abroad in Kenya that we in this House were prepared to risk aggravating a very delicate and dangerous situation for the sake of party political advantage.
I do not believe that, and I do not believe that this Motion has been moved with any other motives than the best. But I think we have to have regard to the background of this matter in so far


as Kenya would appear, in part at any rate, to be reverting to that barbarism from which the white man rescued it. Twenty-one Africans were killed and 27 more were injured because of that reversion to barbarism. Listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough, I was a little anxious lest he be unfair, though unwittingly, to the young officers concerned in the incident which took place on Sunday.
As I understand, the trouble arose out of the attempt of an African patrol, consisting of an African corporal and eight men, to arrest an African who was, apparently, offending against the law. They arrested the African and were advanced upon by a mob of Africans who approached in what can only be described as infantry fashion. Those who have any experience of war will know how infantry advance. They advance so far and then fling themselves to the ground, and proceed in that fashion until they are able to grapple with the enemy in a hand to hand struggle.
I understand that this patrol was heavily stoned, that three African policemen were killed, and that it was not until after this that the white officers came on to the scene. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough would agree that that puts a rather different construction on the matter.

Mr. Lyttelton: I do not know whether I ought to interrupt the hon. Gentleman on a matter of fact, but he mentioned that he thought there were three casualties among the original patrol. There was none. That is merely on a point of fact.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: So far as I know, there were no African casualties at all among the patrol or the police.

Mr. Evans: In that case the newspaper from which I am quoting would appear to be mistaken, and I shall certainly go back to it before this debate ends, because it is a newspaper on which one can normally depend.
I was very glad to read what my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough had to say about this business. He said that whatever the explanation of Mau Mau it is an ugly fact; that its members have committed crimes against man and beast of the vilest character. That is

what he wrote in the "Daily Herald," and, of course, it is important for us to recognise and to keep in mind at all times if we are to arrive at a correct impression, that this is the background against which the events of last Sunday took place.
I would say to the Colonial Secretary that I thought there was some point in one of the observations made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths). If it is a fact that these meetings have been banned, but that the law is being ignored and brought into disrepute, would it not be a good thing to reconsider this matter, because obviously, as has been said both by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly and by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough, it is only the law-abiding who are to suffer from this ban. Indeed, it is going to be impossible for those Africans who are loyal and law abiding to make that appeal to the Kikuyu which is so desirable in present circumstances.
I think that we in this House are quite right to discuss this matter, and I believe that if there is any blame to be apportioned it is as much ours because of our influence in Kenya. Part of the responsibility is ours, and we cannot escape from it. We have the situation in Kenya in which there is one African policeman to 5,000 Africans in the reserve and one European policeman to 250,000 Africans. If our friends in Kenya have not the means with which to create and maintain a police force equal to the situation, then it is our duty to provide assistance because we in this country have lived for a long time, fat and comfortably, on the self-denial of our colonial friends. I would ask the Government to consider that point.
I am sure that we are all going to be very careful in everything we say. I was immensely encouraged by what my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough said in the course of his recent article in the "Daily Herald." I will quote it because it confirms what I have always felt—that we are entitled to have faith and confidence in our own kinsfolk in these circumstances. Indeed, we must have it because if they on the spot cannot solve this problem we in this House cannot.
Therefore, I was glad to read the generous tribute that was paid by my hon. Friend. This is what he said:
Mr. Michael Blundell Leader of the Unofficial members in the Legislative Council is a man of many liberal ideas.
He is the principal European in Nairobi at this moment.
My hon. Friend went on to say:
In the atmosphere of my arrival it was beyond my expectation that before I left I could get the leaders of the four races round a table to discuss a common programme to heal Kenya's wounds.
These are fine words. He said:
But thanks to the tolerance of the European leaders, the constructive response of the Africans and the mediation of Indians and Arabs that happened.
Far from being entitled to be critical of my hon. Friend the Government have every reason to be grateful to him.

8.31 p.m.

Brigadier Christopher Peto: It is very seldom that I trouble the House with an intervention, but I feel that on this occasion I have possibly some very small contribution to make. I have had in the past very similar experiences to those which the young officers whom the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) mentioned are now experiencing in East Africa.
If I may mention it, I was, for example, in Ireland in 1919–20, when we had the same sort of difficulty. Though the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr S. N. Evans) takes up a self-righteous attitude about his party not being politically biased at all in moving this Motion, I would remind him that in 1920, at any rate, they were entirely politically biased in their views on that insurrection.

Mr. S. N. Evans: What happened in 1920 is quite irrelevant. What I am suggesting is that tonight we should keep the temperature down and not say things that would be wrongly construed and interpreted in Kenya.

Brigadier Peto: I quite agree. I was only saying, in passing, that it is not always the case that the hon. Member's party has moved a Motion of this kind without a political end in mind.

Mr. S. Silverman: The hon. and gallant Member will no doubt realise

that, after all, we are talking now of something that happened more than 30 years ago and that there was a difference of opinion between the parties as to the right way to deal with Ireland at that time. Has he learned nothing from that lesson? Is it not clear now that our party was right on that occasion and his party wrong?

Brigadier Peto: I do not know whether the hon. Member learned anything, but this is what the Prime Minister of that day said:
The hon. Members who represent"—

Mr. Follick: On a point of order. I was told that this debate is limited to the events of last Sunday. Surely it is not concerned with what happened in Ireland.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): I thought that the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Devon, North (Brigadier Peto) was drawing a parallel.

Brigadier Peto: In reply to the remark made by the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Follick) and the intervention by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), who asked if I had not learned anything, I might say to his party that they have not learned anything. This is what the Prime Minister of that time, Mr. Lloyd George, said:
The hon. Members who represent the Labour Party find it difficult to reconcile differences amongst themselves and the have very judiciously withdrawn discussion to another sphere."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th June, 1920; Vol. 131, c. 168.]
I only mention that because a similar parallel could be drawn today. I do not think that there is really very much point to be made out of what the hon. Member for Eton and Slough said about the age of these young officers. These young men, one 22 according to the report in "The Times" that the hon. Member quoted, one 21 and one aged 20 had their duty to perform. They had their orders, and to the best of my belief they carried out their duty as they should.
The hon. Gentleman said that there should be somebody more senior—I think the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) said the same—on the spot to take a decision of that sort. Believe me or believe me not, there


are many occasions when a young officer has to make a decision and cannot refer to somebody above him to find out what he should do in given circumstances.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: So has a charge-hand.

Brigadier Peto: Why not? But we are not discussing charge-hands.
I would say to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough that I do not think that these three officers should have any aspersion cast on their action at this moment.

Mr. Follick: He was not casting an aspersion.

Brigadier Peto: Why did he raise the point at all?

Mr. Follick: They are too young.

Brigadier Peto: They are not too young in my opinion, nor in the opinion of the people who put them in that job.

Mr. George Wigg: They must be right.

Brigadier Peto: Why not? How many officers of 22 has the hon. Member known who were not able to take a decision of that sort?

Mr. Wigg: I quite agree that an officer of 20 or even younger is quite capable of taking decisions, but there is all the difference in the world between that and putting on a young man with less than a month's service responsibility in matters of life and death and matters which may affect the whole of civilisation in East Africa.

Brigadier Peto: The hon. Member has made his point. I think that possibly it was true that they had only had a month's service. They had been in that country for a very long time—in fact, born and bred there probably. We shall hear later in the reply from the Government Front Bench—

Mr. Fenner Brockway: One of these officers had been in Kenya for only six weeks.

Brigadier Peto: He may have been one of the very few exceptions. I only have the word of the hon. Gentleman, which I accept, until I have heard the truth from our Front Bench.

Mr. William Ross: Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)
 rose—

Brigadier Peto: I must get on with my speech now or there will not be much time for anybody else.

Mr. Ross: It is an entirely different point.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman does not give way, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) cannot intervene.

Brigadier Peto: I have given way a number of times and I think I had better get on with my speech now.
My experiences in the past have led me to very definite conclusions which are firmly imprinted on my mind. I will give the House one or two of them. First, it is of vital importance that the Governor or the soldier, whoever he may be and of whatever rank, who has a job to do in a very difficult situation, must feel that he has the complete confidence of those to whom he is immediately responsible. That is to say, the Governor must feel that he has the support not only of one side of the House but of the House and the country as a whole. Similarly, a young officer must feel that his action, if he thinks it is right and he does it to the best of his ability, has the support of the authority above him.
Secondly, I think there is a danger that speeches made in this House, however well intentioned, may be misquoted or misconstrued. I think that is a definite danger, and that is one of the disadvantages of having raised this narrow point tonight without very careful forethought being given to it. Thirdly, I think it is very dangerous that there should be unnecessary outside interference at a very ticklish moment.
With that I class the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Llanelly that at this moment we should send a party of Members of Parliament, representing both sides of the House, to investigate what is going on. I think it would be a most untimely action to take. After the present emergency is over and when we have some form of peaceful settlement it might then be well worth sending them, but not at this moment. On the other hand, I should be entirely in favour of setting up a Royal Commission as soon as possible, and the sooner the better.
Lastly, where there is insurrection which may be inflamed and which may spread, it is better to have too much firmness—almost ruthlessness—in the early stages, rather than run the risk of being thought to be weak or vacillating. I should like to see a message go out from this House, from all sides—and I think that this is in accord with what is really in the hearts of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite—that we are agreed and determined to stamp out the evil lawlessness of this terrorism and, at the same time, to uphold the actions taken by those responsible and in whom we have complete trust.

8.41 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: I think I am the only one who has taken part in this debate so far who has no experience whatever of any part of Africa. Some hon. Members opposite may regard that as one example of the kind of outside interference which they deprecate.
I do not take that view. As that country is now constituted under our Commonwealth constitution the ultimate responsibility for what takes place there is that of the Minister; but not his alone, because he is responsible not in any personal capacity but as a Minister of the Crown who is responsible to this House. Many hon. Gentlemen opposite have said, "Leave it to the man on the spot; have confidence in him; do not interfere with him, certainly not from London." I would say to those hon. Gentlemen that neither they nor I can wholly renounce our own personal responsibility. In a sense I am as much responsible as the right hon. Gentleman himself.
There may come a time—we all hope there will—when that will cease to be true, when this Colony and most of our other Colonies will have full and complete responsible self-government. That time is not yet, and until it comes it is the duty of the right hon. Gentleman—and I am sure he accepts it—to satisfy this House that what is going on is rightly going on. So I make no apology whatever.
The first contribution I want to make to the debate is to say that it seems to me quite apparent from what has so far been said on both sides that we do not yet know the full facts of what took place last

Sunday. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] This afternoon the right hon. Gentleman said that he knew enough facts to enable him to decide that an inquiry was unnecessary. That is my first complaint. I do not think that he does possess enough facts to show that an inquiry is unnecessary. I am glad to hear that the general sense of the House is that at the moment we have not the facts on which to form a judgment. If we have not the facts it must be because the right hon. Gentleman has not the facts either. I do not believe that if he had the facts in his possession he would not have communicated them to us.

Brigadier Peto: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that a commission of inquiry, consisting of representatives of this House should be sent out there?

Mr. Silverman: Personally, I would prefer it so, and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), but I do not regard that as necessarily essential. I think that the events of last Sunday are serious enough in themselves and in their possible ultimate implications to make it vitally necessary for this House to inform itself as early as possible as to what actually occurred.
The second point is this. Everyone who has taken part in the debate so far—and I do not disagree—has spoken of the overriding importance of preserving law and order. But lawyers divide the law, at any rate, into two classes; there are those offences referred to as mala quia prohibita and there are those which are mala in se. In other words, there are those things which are an offence only because the Government have forbidden them and there are those things which are evil in themselves. In the present law of Kenya, this meeting on Sunday was a crime, but nobody in the House will think that the right of assembly is a crime in itself. This was a crime in Kenya only because the Government of the day had chosen to prohibit meetings.
But again, another legal maxim worth remembering is that a law which does not carry with it the moral consent, or at least the moral acquiescence, of the vast majority of the people for whom the law is made, is a very bad law indeed. My right hon. Friend said that meetings are going on all over Kenya in spite of the prohibition. I do not know about that.


We are told that the meeting on Sunday was attended by 2,000 people. That does not look as though the Kenya Government's decree prohibiting meetings carried with it the authority of the majority of the inhabitants of Kenya, and if it did not, then the Government would be wise to withdraw it forthwith.
If a Government are to prohibit meetings in a country where the majority of the people desire to hold them, then they have to rely for their government only on force, and if the force is insufficient, the Government will be defeated. There can be no greater crime against law and order than for a Government to take up a position in which it can enforce its will not by the consent of the governed but by force, and then not have the force with which to enforce it; this is the worst way of government; this is the easiest way to anarchy.

Mr. F. Harris: If it were subsequently found that a large number of the people who were assembled there came from 20 or 30 miles away, would the hon. Gentleman still agree that such meetings ought not to be permitted at a time so critical as this?

Mr. Silverman: I do not think there is a suggestion that this happened in this case.

Mr. Harris: It did

Mr. Silverman: That has not been suggested so far.

Mr. Harris: It is in the newspaper today.

Mr. John Rankin: I had to come 400 miles to this meeting.

Mr. Silverman: I was not aware that it was in the newspapers, but let me take the hon. Gentleman's point. It is a valid point on the general idea I am putting to the House, whether it applies to this case or not.
We have had experience of this kind in this country. There were the days when Mosley and his supporters used to disturb the peace of the country. In every single case they did it by bringing in lorry and van loads from 10, 20, 40, 50 miles away, and as much as 100 miles or 200 miles away, and brought only for the purpose of causing mischief. Hon.

Members opposite would not say—I myself would not have said—that those meetings ought to have been prohibited for that reason. What I am saying is that it is quite clear, if what my right hon. Friend said at the beginning is correct, that meetings are being held all over Kenya despite the prohibition, and I say that that means we have to rely on force, and that the event has shown we cannot rely on force.
Now I come to the point of the age and experience of the young men. I do not think anybody on the opposite side who heard my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) make his speech really thinks he was intending to cast any kind of reflection upon those boys. Certainly, he did not. He went out of his way to make it quite clear that he was not doing anything of the kind. Nor is there anybody in the House who does not know that people even as young as that in all countries and at all times have sometimes been forced to take decisions of the utmost gravity and the heaviest responsibility. And that will always happen. There is no reason why it should not happen. But the suggestion here is not merely confined to their age. One of them had had only six weeks' experience of Kenya altogether, and he was 20 years old.

Brigadier Peto: The young one the hon. Gentleman mentioned would not have had the executive task of giving the order to fire. He would have taken the order from the senior one above him.

Mr. Silverman: That senior one was only 22, and he had had only a few weeks' experience himself. Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman really think—and I think his opinion is likely to be a sounder one than mine on such a point because, obviously, he has had very much more experience of it—it right to send people with such short experience, of ages like this, in charge of a mere handful of native troops—

Mr. Ede: Police.

Mr. Silverman: Yes, of course, police—eight or nine of them, in order to disperse a mob of 2,000 people, some of whom, at any rate, were armed? How else could they do it than by shooting? Does he really think it was a wise decision? My right hon. Friend made this point. To whom was the report of


the original disturbance made, and who had the responsibility for deciding what would be done about it? We shall probably get an answer to that later, but for the moment would the hon. and gallant Gentleman himself, if he had been the responsible officer in that part of Kenya last Sunday, have sent these three youths, with that handful of police, to handle that mob of 2,000 people determined to hold a meeting in spite of the Government's prohibition? Would he? I know perfectly well that he would not, and that was the basis of my hon. Friend's criticism.
In our long history we have had experience of this kind of thing in many parts of the world. Ireland has been referred to; and we have had a recent experience in Palestine. The experiences of the American colonies in the last quarter of the 18th century—if my history is right—have been referred to, about which I think Sir Edmund Burke is well worth reading in this African context. What is clear is that one cannot by force impose a minority régime against the will of the mass of the people, and if we are to do any good in Kenya, or Africa, it is obvious that we must do our utmost to ally with our purpose the active consent of the majority of the people whose land it is.
That cannot be done if we persist in the attitude of the Kenya Government, in deliberately spurning the offer of any kind of co-operation from the natural leaders of the African section of the population. It seems to me that it was out of these three things that the disaster, as I am sure everybody agrees it to be, of last Sunday occurred. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree to an immediate inquiry into the events of last Sunday, and into the decrees and prohibitions out of which those events arose.

8.57 p.m.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: At the outset, I should like to make a reference to the slight altercation I had with the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) while he was speaking. I am sorry he is not in his place, but when he reads what I say in HANSARD tomorrow I hope he will agree. In the course of his remarks he suggested, as did various hon. Members throughout the debate, that in his view a commission of inquiry should

be sent out immediately, and I made the comment that I thought that was ridiculous. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman heard exactly what I said, but that was my comment.

Mr. James Hudson: The hon. Gentleman said "nonsense."

Mr. Craddock: I stand to be corrected, but what I recall is that I said "ridiculous." Anyway, there is not much to choose between "ridiculous" and "nonsense." Whatever phrase I used, I still feel that it would be a very great mistake for a commission of inquiry to be sent out to Kenya at this juncture.
My approach to the whole of this problem is this. Rightly or wrongly, when listening to discussions on these matters in this House I have formed the impression, particularly from the speeches of many hon. Members opposite, that they never seem to give full credit for the tremendous work which has been done in East Africa, and in other British Colonies, by the British administration in those Colonies, the European settlers and the missionaries. That is one of my great objections to so many of the comments one hears. Even this evening, in this debate, we have heard very little reference, so far as the Mau Mau trouble in Kenya is concerned, to the ghastly atrocities that have been committed on many fine Europeans who have served Kenya for years, and with great success.

Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: The hon. Gentleman must not say that. Surely in this debate we are limited to what occurred last Sunday.

Mr. Craddock: And matters relevant thereto, according to Mr. Speaker's Ruling. We have heard a great deal about the killing of Africans, and that is very regrettable indeed. Nevertheless, if any message is going out from this House tonight on this matter, it should be that this House has the fullest confidence in the administration in Kenya to handle this matter.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: No one has said anything to the contrary.

Mr. Craddock: The hon. and learned Gentleman has not been here during most of the debate.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: That is quite wrong. I hope that the hon. Member will withdraw that statement. I have been sitting here all the time.

Mr. Craddock: I did not see the hon. and learned Gentleman, and I certainly withdraw my remark.
Let me now turn to the next point, that made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). He took great exception to the banning of these meetings. I think that he said—and his right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly also said—that there were meetings going on in this connection throughout the whole of Kenya. So far as my information goes these meetings are confined to the Kikuyu Reserve. That is the point. I much regret that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne has not spent any time in that part of the world, and I have no doubt he will take the opportunity of doing so at some early date.

Mr. S. Silverman: The hon. Member can do it for me.

Mr. Craddock: Even in my short time in this House, I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's thirst for knowledge and experience, and I think it will be a good thing if he went there, because if he knew East Africa, I think that he would agree that the ordinary rules, legal or otherwise, in connection with meetings do not apply to Mau Mau at all.

Mr. Wigg: If the hon. Member makes that point, which is a perfectly fair one, that the Kikuyu Reserve meetings should be banned, many of us on this side support him, but does he support similar measures being taken for the whole of Kenya, whether there are disorders or not?

Mr. Craddock: Yes, at this present juncture, I do.
I want to confine myself to the ambit of this debate. This Mau Mau trouble is no new thing in Kenya. It has been going on for years, and in the last 20 or 30 years there have been spasmodic outbreaks of Mau Mau trouble. What is this Mau Mau movement? We all know that it is what one would simply and quickly describe as witchcraft. It is a movement of appalling barbarism and most frightful savagery, and I myself, some 17 or 18 years ago, actually saw what had been done to an African who

had refused to join the secret society of Mau Mau. I cannot describe the appalling mutilation that was committed on that unhappy and unfortunate African. It is a purely barbaric movement which must be stamped out, in my view, with absolute ruthlessness. I certainly feel that the administration is fully entitled, and, indeed, it is its boundened duty, to take every step to stamp out the spreading growth of this horrible movement.

Mr. Rankin: Would the hon. Member agree that this movement should be stamped out in Basutoland by the same methods as are employed in Kenya, because what he describes in Kenya is just as rife in Basutoland?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I hope that the hon. Member will not reply to that question. It would be quite out of order for him to do so.

Mr. Craddock: As I say, if hon. Members had seen some of the crimes that have been perpetrated by the followers of Mau Mau, I am quite certain they would agree that the administration was right, and that my right hon. Friend the Minister was correct in saying that we must take the strongest steps possible to stamp it out. Because, apart from the wounding, maiming and killing of Europeans, the largest number of victims are the Africans themselves.
When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly says—as I understood him to say—that the present action of the administration would have the effect—and I quote his words—"of driving all Africans into Mau Mau," with the very greatest respect, I do not agree at all. If I know the African at all, I should say that the bulk of the Africans in Kenya are wholeheartedly behind the Administration in taking these very strong measures to stamp out Mau Mau.

Mr. Ede: I listened very carefully to what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths). I do not think he said that it would have the effect of doing this. He said there was a danger that it might lead to it.

Mr. Craddock: I took his words down. His words were that the action being taken now "might have the effect."

Mr. Ede: That is very different from saying "would have the effect," as the hon. Gentleman did just now.

Mr. Craddock: I will not split hairs with the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. S. Silverman: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate the difference?

Mr. Craddock: Yes, I am just as well educated as is the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne. Will the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) accept it if I say that his right hon. Friend said that it might have the effect of bringing all the Africans into Mau Mau.

Mr. Ede: I believe my right hon. Friend said, "There is a danger that it might have the effect."

Mr. Craddock: I do not accept that statement for one minute. I do not believe that the large numbers of Africans will have anything to do with Mau Mau at all. I believe the very reverse of that will be the case. All my information at the moment is that the bulk of the Africans are behind the administration in adopting these very stern measures.
The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) complained that the administration had made a great mistake in not allowing the leaders of the African people in Kenya to address meetings of the people. There, again, I believe that would have an entirely adverse effect. My view is that the Africans in Kenya are much more inclined to pay attention and heed to what the District Commissioners and their own chiefs tell them than to anything that they are told by the so-called leaders who have set themselves up in Kenya today.
Be that as it may, I believe that on Sunday last at Kirawara the administration were perfectly justified in their action. I believe they must take the very strongest and sternest measures to stamp out the appalling atrocity of Mau Mau. Fortunately, it is a movement which is not supported by many Africans; it is a small cult imbued with primitive ideas of savagery and barbarism, and the sooner it is stamped out the better for all concerned, in Kenya and for the Africans in particular.

9.8 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Beresford Craddock) could not have read with very great care the debate which took place in the House on 7th November. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) and many other hon. Friends of mine made it clear that we have the utmost sympathy with those who have suffered at the hands of the Mau Mau supporters and that the Secretary of State and the Government had the wholehearted support of the Opposition in taking the necessary steps to suppress Mau Mau. We made it clear on that occasion, and we can repeat it now if the hon. Gentleman wishes it to be repeated. The Opposition stand 100 per cent. behind the suppression of Mau Mau.
We are discussing and rightly discussing—although I know that a number of hon. Gentlemen want to gag us—how the situation last Sunday came about. The hon. Member for Spelthorne rightly said that secret societies and witchcraft are endemic in Africa. That sort of thing is commonplace; it is going on all the time. If it is not called Mau Mau, it is called something else. It is bestial, wicked and illegal, and it must be put down. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, in Kenya it is confined to a small area, to the Kikuyu Reserve.
We have all the evidence we need that the outbreak came about suddenly. We can even fix the date. On 17th July the Secretary of State came to the House for the debate on colonial affairs in which we review the whole of our colonial activities, and he said not one word about Mau Mau or disorders. It must have been a rather sudden occurrence.
The hon. and gallant Member for Devon, North (Brigadier Peto) put forward a perfectly acceptable military doctrine, though an old-fashioned one. It was about trusting the man on the spot. I am all in favour of trusting the man on the spot, but that leads to one of my criticisms of the Secretary of State. He failed in his duty to send out the new Governor, and for four months he left the Colony, when bordering on insurrection, without a Governor. That is a charge that has never been answered. Last Sunday is one of the consequences of the neglect of duty of the Secretary of State, and he cannot avoid that charge.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: The hon. Member, with his experience, will agree with me, I am sure, that when a Governor is away the Chief Secretary carries on, and generally Chief Secretaries are quite capable of carrying on in the absence of the Governor.

Mr. Wigg: The simple fact is that whether the Chief Secretary is capable or not, there was a failure to appreciate the gravity of this situation, otherwise I am quite sure that the Colony would not have been left without a Governor for four months. When the Secretary of State did appreciate the situation what did he do? He did not introduce his emergency measure in the Kikuyu Reserve only. He applied them over the whole of Kenya. He had at least four and a half battalions and a cruiser and we must not forget the cruiser.

Mr. Lyttelton: On last Sunday?

Mr. Wigg: Not last Sunday, but the right hon. Gentleman must not forget the provocative use of the cruiser in Mombasa. He ordered the sailors to march through the streets in an area in which there were no disorders and where there have been no disorders. It was a demonstration of force because, of course, the policy of Her Majesty's Government and of the Secretary of State is not based upon political reconciliation. The right hon. Gentleman does not want an agreement. What he wants to use is ruthless force. He told us so today.
One of the very interesting aspects of the whole Kenya trouble has been the reports in "The Times." They have been quite objective, at least from one point of view. Certainly, no one in the Conservative Central Office or the Colonial Office could take any objection to the reports appearing in "The Times." They have favoured the Government point of view. I am not going to rely on "The Times" of this morning, although I read the article in it with very great interest.
I want to turn to "The Times" of 30th October, because on that day the Secretary of State arrived in Kenya, and, therefore, the special correspondent of "The Times" had the advantage of the advice of the official spokesman and maybe a hint or two from the Secretary of State himself. This is what he wrote:

The completion of the police chase would have been much easier if there had been a clash in which large numbers of Mau Mau had put up a resistance and been rounded up.
Those are the words of "The Times," and I should like to know from the Secretary of State whether, in fact, the sentiments expressed in "The Times" article were in any way a part of the official policy of the Government?

Mr. Lyttelton: I can tell the hon. Member straight away that anything that appears in "The Times" relating to Kenya has not been inspired by or represents in any way official policy, but represents the opinions of the newspaper. With some of them I agree and with some I disagree.

Mr. Wigg: That is a step forward.
We know that the special correspondent out in Kenya was putting forward a point of view that must have come from somewhere. It has not been denied. The Secretary of State has had from 30th October to 24th November to deny this very simple fact that the police were hampered because the members of the Mau Mau had not put up a resistance. One understands the reason for that. The Kikuyu are a docile people. They are not the kind of people described by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Teeling), who talked about the chiefs being natural leaders. The Kikuyu have become so detribalised that they have no natural leaders. That is one of the troubles. The Government have to appoint them. The Government pay a certain number of people to act as chiefs. Those chosen serve the Government and the Kikuyu people to the best of their ability.
The fact is, however, that the only people in Kenya who can talk to the Kikuyu are the leaders of the Kenya Africa Union and, whether the Secretary of State likes it or not, he must either use those leaders or rely upon force. His answer, of course, is force and ruthless force. Yet as one of the African leaders in the Kenya Legislative Council said, the trouble is that when peaceful methods fail, force remains, but when force fails, nothing else remains.
That is the position in which the Secretary of State finds himself now. He relied on force. He relied on four and a half battalions. He sent the cruiser H.M.S "Kenya" away and a frigate


has taken its place. Then he found himself caught up in a police action which brought about the deplorable result of 16 Africans losing their lives and a worsening of the general situation in Kenya. His four and a half battalions, his cruiser and his policy based upon force have not brought about an improvement of the situation. As he said himself today, the situation has in many ways worsened. One of the reasons why my right hon. Friend moved the adjournment of the House was because we are afraid that if not next Sunday, on some other Sunday we shall find once again a worsening of the situation.
Sooner or later a Secretary of State has to realise that a policy of force by itself will not produce an answer. Somebody, at some stage, has to get people around a table in order to find a policy for a basis of peace in Kenya, and the sooner a start is made the better. I should have thought it would have led to a general leavening of the political temperature if a delegation went out from this House to talk to members of all races in Kenya round a table, get them to see that it is in the interests of everybody that a policy of force should be abandoned, and get a foundation of good will which, in the long run, is the only way of achieving a peaceful Kenya as a result of which we can abandon the use of troops.
The Secretary of State ought to tell us at what point the police take over and at what point the military take over. It seems to me extraordinary that, with the considerable forces at his disposal, a situation should be reached in which 2,000 Kikuyu faced three inexperienced police officers. Where were the troops? They have been sent out there. Indeed, the Secretary of State held up the imposition of emergency measures until he was quite sure he had his four and a half battalions there. What are they doing? What are the troops there for if they are not there to police the Kikuyu Reserve, the area in which there are these disorders?
The situation has been handled from the start with the greatest incompetence. The Secretary of State has got himself into a mess, he does not know how to get out of it and the consequence is that the people of Kenya and of this country

have to foot the bill. I have said it before, and I repeat it tonight, that the best thing the right hon. Gentleman can do is to resign. Sooner or later he will have to resign. There can be no fresh start in Kenya as long as the right hon. Gentleman is the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He would do something to make up for the wrong he has done, not only to the people of Kenya but to his fellow countrymen, if he offered his resignation to the Prime Minister who, I hope, would accept it.

9.25 p.m.

Mr. John Peyton: I do not want to follow the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) at great length, but I nevertheless believe it to be necessary at least to correct the impression that he gave to the House that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies wants to use force.
I hope that I am not misrepresenting what the hon. Member said, but I understood him to suggest that it was the desire of the Colonial Secretary to use force. Really, the force on this occasion with which we are concerned is that which is used by this criminal organisation known as Mau Mau. There is no possibility of conferences with such people and under such circumstances. Conferences which are born of violence are usually doomed to a very serious failure.
I should very much doubt whether anyone who has heard the whole of this debate could feel assured that it would serve any useful purpose whatever. Equally, it would be right and fair to say of the restraint shown by hon. Members opposite—I mention particularly the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), and the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway), both of whom showed marked restraint in the tones which they used—that it is a matter for which we can all be grateful that no wilder words have been used on what is a very explosive occasion.
I thought, however, that there has been a note of unreality permeating right through all the tenor of this discussion. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough referred to the young men. Are we not entitled to recognise and admit that this is an emergency, at any rate for the inhabitants of Kenya, and that in emergencies these young men are very rightly called upon to do their best, and that it


is most unreasonable to suggest that the fact that such young men have been called upon is a sign of unpreparedness?
Whatever else may be said against the Government, surely it is a most unreasonable charge to level against them that three young men, in a large country like Kenya, have been willing to come forward and do their duty. I know what the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), who is about to rise, is going so say: that it was not the intention—I gladly admit this—of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough to suggest anything against those young men themselves. I do not dispute that for a moment. All I am saying is that it is a most irrelevant argument to bring against the Government that the services of these young men should have been used.
I think that the same unreality was present in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly. As one of my hon. Friends has said, the suggestion that an unarmed man—whether an African leader or a white man is immaterial—should have attended this meeting and seriously suggested to them that they should have disbanded, is so unreal and so impractical as not to be worthy of the consideration which normally arguments coming from the right hon. Gentleman should receive in all parts of the House.

Mr. S. Silverman: Does the hon. Member mean that the meeting ought to have been dispersed, that the only way it could have been dispersed was in the way chosen, by sending this handful of people led by these three young men, and that, therefore, the shooting was justified by the mere holding of the meeting and not by the fear that the meeting was going to attack?

Mr. Peyton: There was a dangerous situation. A large crowd had assembled when public meetings were banned by law. It was, therefore, the duty of the authorities to disperse that meeting, using the minimum of force that was necessary. Surely the hon. Member, with his experience, appreciates the principle underlying that.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Do I gather from the hon. Gentleman that in circumstances of this kind—and there may be others—no attempt of a peaceful character should be made by civilian officers to disperse the

gathering before the armed force is brought in?

Mr. Peyton: Certainly not. I entirely agree that every attempt should be made peacefully to disperse these crowds, but a crowd of 2,000 men armed with savage knives does not present a very tempting target for an unarmed civilian to approach and disperse on his own.
I believe that in present circumstances it would be most dangerous to remove the ban on public meetings. It would obviously place on the administration, which is already carrying in this emergency an exceptionally heavy burden, a quite unfair extra burden were we to ask them to observe and to allow the normal rule of public meetings to go on unsuspended.
It is not from a party point of view that I would approach this matter. It is of desperate importance that we should not allow emotion to cloud our judgment in any way, and it is of vital importance that the emotion which is so engendered in this House, and even more dangerously outside it, should not be allowed to cloud our clear duty, which is the re-establishment at any early date of law and order in Kenya.
I believe that that emotion is something which has already done very grave harm indeed in this highly vexed question of racial relations. So often it has allowed us in this country and in this House to give the impression among wide areas of the world that we are not prepared to do what I believe is our duty, namely, to support those who are carrying out the tasks of administration.
I think that we in this House should pause tonight to think of the extreme difficulties and the vastly increased burdens which are now carried by members of the administration in Kenya. We should seriously pause, even in the midst of this very difficult and vexed racial question, to remember those burdens and the people who are carrying them, and to send them a message tonight, a message certainly not of party politics, but of encouragement, to the effect that we in this House, quite regardless of party, will support them in all they may do which is right and within the letter of the law.
This question links itself up, too, with the misunderstanding which has grown in recent years concerning our attitude towards the white populations. I was very


glad and perhaps a little surprised to hear the very generous way in which the hon. Member for Eton and Slough began his speech tonight. He said quite clearly that his recent visit to Kenya had revealed to him the appallingly dangerous and difficult atmosphere in which the white populations live.
Incidents such as the tragic occurrence of last Sunday should, I believe, always remind us of the position in which a white minority lives among a race, the large majority of which has only just begun to acquire the rudiments of civilisation.
The white minority in such circumstances should not be tempted too far by accusations from here or by taunts such as sometimes have come their way. I believe that if we are going to make progress over this vexed racial question we shall only do it by making it perfectly clear, that we are not prepared, on an unbridled and uncontrolled wave of emotion, to betray that white population to whom we owe our best and primary duty.
I do not believe that this debate has served any useful purpose. I do not believe equally that it has done any harm, but I believe that a Division tonight on this Motion would do immense and incalculable harm. I do not know what are the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly. I can only guess from the remarks that he made and from the way in which he made them that his intentions are to advise his hon. Friends not to divide the House.
In that case I can only say that I welcome that decision most sincerely, because I believe that to divide the House tonight on a party basis would have one real consequence. It is that outside this House, right beyond its confines, such a Division would be taken as a condonation of violence, a betrayal of those to whom we owe a considerable duty and a jettisoning of what is really vital and truly a great Imperial trust.

9.33 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Oliver Lyttelton): I should like to begin by thanking almost all the hon. Members who have taken part in this debate for the very temperate way in which they have put their arguments. I must except the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), though his speech, which

he has made so often, has really so lost its stings that I might even include him among those who made balanced statements.
All through these speeches one could detect a very great sense of responsibility in the very critical times which face Kenya today. I hope that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite will interrupt me if I forget or seem to avoid any point that they have made. I hope that they will not hesitate to hold me up if they think that I am trying to avoid any of them. I will make no small points, but will try to put to the House exactly how this situation last Sunday appears to me, how I think it has been dealt with, and what lessons we shall learn from it.
First of all, the situation is in no sense critical as a result of last Sunday, but, of course, the possibility of grave convulsions must always be present in our minds. Since I made a statement in this House this afternoon I have had a further telegram from the Governor of Kenya. I think—and I say this with some diffidence—that it will be for the convenience of the House if I give a complete account of these events, incorporating the extra information which I have received since, because in the course of this debate there have been some varying versions of what occurred in the same events. Probably it would be for the convenience of the House if I restated the events, if, in other words, I gave an official report of what has happened. In doing so, I will turn aside here and there to pick up some points made in the debate.
I will begin by reminding hon. Members who have not had the advantage of being in the Colony that Kirawara is a very small place, not marked on most maps and in the Thika district, and although it is in that district it is in what we should describe as typical Fort Hall country—that is to say, country broken up into a series of small hills and valleys with a good deal of standing timber, and thickly populated. At about half-past 10 in the morning of the day of these events—I use that equivocal phrase because the latest telegram says it was 22nd November which would be a Saturday, and that could be a mistake—a police constable and eight Askaris, four of whom were armed, found a mob of about 2,000 strong partly armed with


pangas—long knives of the country—assembled in Kirawara market place. This is the first of the events.
I want to interpolate here something about the emergency regulations and public meetings. Public meetings of this kind are illegal under the emergency regulations. They are illegal at the moment all over the Colony of Kenya. I take up at this point something that was said by the hon. Member for Dudley. It is not desirable to continue emergency regulations outside the areas affected for a day more than is necessary, and that is the policy which I discussed with the Governor and which the authorities there will pursue.
Nevertheless, a mob of 2,000 people cannot be collected in such a small place as this without messengers having gone out far and wide to collect them. There they were, and it is unquestionable that they were engaged in an illegal meeting. I have studiously avoided trying to put any debating points, but I must say that those who think that in this state of the Colony a meeting should be allowed, are in my opinion wrong. I must give some reasons why they are going to continue to be illegal until the Colony is in a much quieter state.
After all, if the law is flouted—and this particular meeting was flouting the law—is it generally the right way to make what is illegal legal in order to get out of the difficulty? I think not. Such a doctrine, if carried to its logical conclusion, is complete surrender. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) said that the Government could commit no greater crime than to be unable to keep law and order, and that in those circumstances the last state of the country was very much worse than the first. I do not think that is controversial.
Let me just discuss a little further this matter of these meetings. Does any right hon. or hon. Gentleman really think that in this state of the Kikuyu Reserve we could permit the assembly of, say, 20,000 people without great danger to the public safety, especially having regard to the number of police per head of the population? Hon. Members are entitled to their opinion, but if any hon. Member says that such an assembly could be permitted I must say that I do not agree.
One of the causes of these troubles was that at one time a meeting of 20,000 or 30,000 of the Kikuyu was permitted and was given some very inflamatory speeches by leaders. I must say with absolute bluntness that I would not be willing to accept responsibility for advising the Kenya Government in these conditions to permit public meetings. Let me hasten to add that such an embargo is only justified when law and order is seriously jeopardised, and it is, if you like, a self-criticism of the state of the Colony that this measure is necessary.
I can only say to the House that so far as lies within my power and that of the Governor, we will try to restore the right of assembly, which is one of the fundamental rights, as soon as the state of public safety permits. I think that is a fair answer but from the quite practical point of view I must say that to admit public meetings which might easily reach figures of 20,000 or 30,000 in this state of the Colony would be absolute folly.
Another point which was raised by the last speaker from the other side was the question of what the troops were doing. That argument appeared to be designed to be in favour of martial law. I do not take that view in this case, any more than I do in the case of Malaya. I think that here we must rely as far as possible upon the civilian authority and the police to keep the Colony in order. That is not to say that armed forces—soldiers—should not be held in reserve in case—which is quite possible—what is now a secret society movement develops into an open rebellion. I think I have the House with me in saying that for as long as possible we intend to deal with these particular movements by civil police action under the law as it exists in Kenya.
To resume the narrative—the House will remember that so far a corporal and eight Askaris had discovered this meeting. The mob advanced on these nine men and stoned them. After warning the crowd the corporal opened fire, but withdrew in face of the overwhelming numbers and threatening attitude of the crowd. No casualties were reported from the police—the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) raised this point—but three casualties were reported, though not confirmed, amongst the crowd. The corporal then went to Thika for reinforcements.
The right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) asked if it was not desirable that a civil officer should make an attempt to disperse crowds in these circumstances. I am all for using all available agencies, especially civilian ones, for trying to restore law and order or trying to prevent a breach of the peace. In this case—which I cannot guarantee will happen in every case—a civilian officer, Chief Ndumgu, with three Askaris attempted to disperse this particular mob. I may say that this Chief knows the language, which answers another point made by the right hon. Gentleman. The Chief was chased off by the mob. So that attempt to obtain a dispersal of this crowd by peaceful means, by a civil officer speaking the language, had manifestly failed. At half-past 12—that is, two hours after the mob were originally told to disperse—Inspector Blackwell, with two European officers and 22 African police, arrived and took up position on two sides of the market square.
At this point I must turn aside to discuss the matter of the age of these officers. It is very regrettable—as two or three hon. Members opposite have mentioned—that great responsibilities should devolve upon officers of this age. I admit it freely. I discussed this matter with the Governor, and the Government are determined to police the Kikuyu areas very much more closely than they are now policed. The number of police in comparison to the total population is infinitesimal and as long as that situation exists I am bound to say, quite frankly, that there will be occasions when grave responsibilities will devolve upon quite young men.
But I think we should also remember that none of us who are getting old would be in this House if the youth of our country had not accepted and fulfilled its responsibilities in every quarter of the globe. Let hon. Members remember that. However, be that as it may, it is perhaps significant that the actual cause of the assembly of this mob was to resist the very thing which the right hon. Gentleman wishes—and I agree with him—the building of a police post in order that there should be more police and that these very heavy responsibilities should not be faced upon officers who many of us would

regard—I would not be one—as of immature age. That is the reason why the mob assembled, because they wanted to pull down the police post which was in the course of being built.
I will leave this part of the subject by saying that I agree with hon. Members who suggest that it is desirable that these grave responsibilities should devolve only upon the oldest and most experienced officer in the area. We all agree about that, but I must, equally frankly, say that, with this spread of the police, it is very likely that here and there quite junior people may have to take serious decisions. The point here is that in taking these decisions the police and these officers behaved with the greatest restraint and sense of discipline.
I now resume the narrative. The mob was then in a state of frenzy and was being harangued by a youth and a young woman. I do not know whether they were members of the Mau Mau. The House will see from the narrative some of the dangers of unlimited public assembly which has been advocated, and very sincerely advocated, by some hon. Members. This mob had been worked into a state of frenzy by a youth and a young woman, and Inspector Blackwell arrested the youth, who called upon the mob to rescue him.
The mob surged forward, and Blackwell ordered them to halt. This order was either not heard in the din or, if it were heard, it certainly was not obeyed. Accordingly, Blackwell himself and one of the other two European inspectors fired a burst of Sten gun fire into the ground, and the mob then lay down, but shortly rose again and attacked in the most determined manner.
I want to pause at this point to assure the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne that there is no question of the mob being unable to get away or anything of that kind. They were in a state of frenzy and they attacked the police—the 2,000 against 25 men—in the most determined way. Inspector Blackwell did not order fire to be opened until the mob were within seven to 10 yards of the nearest policeman and his 23 men. Let me make it quite clear that there is no question, no doubt whatever, that these police were being attacked. When fire was opened, the mob bolted.
The wounded were attended at once and taken to hospital. Altogether, 343 were arrested. Some young boys were released. Some people will be charged with riot. The total confirmed casualties, on the information which I have received—despatched at 12.30 p.m. Nairobi time today—are 16 killed and 17 wounded. The mob leader, who was arrested, was a youth who was said to be dumb until last week. According to him, he recovered his speech and saw a vision, and he prophesied that God would arrive at Kirawara at one o'clock and that then aeroplanes would fall to the earth and the police bullets would be turned to water. These are the statements which had the effect of working this mob into a state of frenzy, and in these circumstances I think the House will have some sympathy with me in feeling that this order against assembly should be maintained until things are in a more peaceful condition.
All the communications also show that although this was caused by the building of the police post, the mob were inspired by the Mau Mau. I do not know whether the youth was a member of Mau Mau or had taken the oath, but it is apparent that the mob were inspired by the Mau Mau, because the Africans had removed all their European clothing before this meeting and piled it in the market place. As the House knows, this is the usual preliminary at Mau Mau meetings.
I want again to say that throughout this incident the police discipline was excellent. No unauthorised shot was fired, and the firing ceased immediately upon command. I have some experience both in war and peace of battle and civil disturbance. I know of no other way in which they could have acted when set upon by 2,000 armed with knives. I have other responsibilities in this matter, and if these 25 policemen had been hacked to pieces—which is what would have happened if they had not opened fire—then another series of equally disastrous events would have ensued.
These are the complete facts, and I am sure the House will take a balanced and objective view of them. It would be wrong, on the one hand, to give the impression that the police are justified, have carte blanche—whatever phrase hon. Members like—in opening fire whenever

any illegal mob is assembled, or even when their own safety begins to be threatened. It is as repugnant to me as it is to any hon. Member—and I believe the House will know that I am speaking with full sincerity—to condone the use of firearms except in very extreme cases.
But let me make it quite clear that equally it would strike a fatal blow to the cause of peace and law and order—I adopt the right hon. Gentleman's phrase—if it were thought that this House, after full evidence had been put before it of the circumstances, as it has in this case, were not prepared to support the police to the full in the proper exercise of their duty.
The tenor of some speeches made from the other side of the House was that we should order an inquiry into these events. I am always willing to order an inquiry where I am doubtful whether the officers on the spot, who have the full load of responsibility on their shoulders, have not acted in the best manner, and I am quite willing to order inquiry where there is any obscurity in what has happened.
But there is none here. Everything that can be found out about this incident has been found out, and it has been shown that the handful of police, three Europeans and 22 Africans, had to deal with a frenzied mob, mostly armed with those long knives, and organised by the secret society; and that they behaved with admirable discipline and restraint, and used their rifles only when they had to. It is quite clear from the reports that if they had not opened fire they would have been slashed to pieces, and I suggest that it would be wrong now for this House to re-open this case—to suggest that an inquiry should be made into something which is already known; because the moment that inquiry went forth from this House the Administration and police in Kenya would think we were not behind them.
I beg hon. Members in all parts of the House not to let the impression go back to Kenya—which, I think, from the temper of the House and what has been said today would be a false one—that we are now to let the police down. I end in the most seemly way I can end by again assuring the House that in all these matters—the emergency regulations—I will, with the Governor and the Government of Kenya, endeavour to remove


every check upon public liberty—public and private liberty—that is possible, having regard to the public safety. I ask the House to sympathise with me in often having to impose very repugnant measures just for this particular matter of public safety, because I am simple enough to think that unless the Government can deliver to their citizens freedom from fear, all other measures are merely nugatory.

9.55 p.m.

Mr. J. Griffiths: By your leave, Mr. Speaker, and the leave of the House, I am going to advise my right hon. and hon. Friends not to press this Motion to a Division. I want, however, to tell the Secretary of State that I am not satisfied with the reply on the narrow point which we have been able to discuss tonight. Indeed, I am more deeply concerned about the general trend of policy.
Let me reaffirm what I have said from the very beginning on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends. We are determined to offer our fullest co-operation in every way to stamp out the terrorism of Mau Mau. At the same time, we are deeply concerned that we should take every step to root out the underlying trouble; and in the face of the present emergency it is essential to preserve racial co-operation. We shall seek an early opportunity of returning to the larger questions beyond the scope of this debate, and of putting forward our constructive proposals of how we think this situation should be handled now, and in the future.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — IRON AND STEEL BILL

Postponed Proceeding on Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," resumed.

Question again proposed.

9.57 p.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith: We now revert to our discussion on the Iron and Steel Bill. This is a Bill for the public supervision of the iron and steel industry, to co-ordinate private profit and the work of the trade associations, and I wish to put on record the trade union views on this Bill. I quote first from the 1952 Report of the Confederation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades, which says:—
The Confederation Executive Council at its meeting considered the declaration contained in the speech relating to the determination of the Tory Government to introduce a Measure to annul the Iron and Steel Act. The action of the Labour Government which resulted in the nationalisation of the iron and steel industry was the result of a decisive mandate received from the electors. It is the view of the Confederation that to attempt now to place the industry in the hands of private enterprise would not be in the best interests of the nation.
That resolution was sent to the Trades Union Congress who considered it, and who as a result sent a letter to the Minister reminding him that the T.U.C. has for many years advocated the public ownership of the iron and steel industry, and had given full support to the Iron and Steel Act, 1949. The letter went on:
The General Council have asked me to make it clear that their views on the ownership of the iron and steel industry have not changed, and that they remain utterly opposed to any proposal to restore to private ownership the sections of the industry affected by the Act of 1949.
Later they sent a further letter to the Minister, making it quite clear that the whole trade union movement is fundamentally opposed to this Bill. Therefore, no matter what individuals may say, no matter how highly placed they may be, the policy of the Trades Union Congress is opposed to this Bill.
When the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) was speaking, I referred to our 1945 General Election declaration on which we received a mandate to proceed with the nationalisation of the steel industry. Here is a further quotation that I ought to give for


the benefit of right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House.
The Labour Party is a Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain—free, democratic, efficient, progressive, public-spirited—
That must be read in harmony with our policy regarding the basic industries, and the policy which we ought to be reflecting in this House in all our speeches, and in our actions.
On this policy of the de-nationalisation of industry, I charge this Government with proceeding along the road to ruining this country. I charge this Government with beginning the ruining of this country. That is a terrible indictment that can be made against this Government when we come to consider that, according to the Bulletin for Industry, issued in November by the Economic Section of the Treasury, they are proceeding with this Bill at a time when the steel industry is in a better position than ever before in its history.
Here are one or two extracts from this publication.
The steel outlook has recently improved considerably. … There is now little doubt that steel output this year will top the 16 million tons mark, compared with 15.64 million in 1951. … During the last 18 months, seven new blast furnaces have been blown in and another three are to come into blast shortly. … The main factor in the rapid rise in crude output has been the expansion of pig iron production.
At a time when, as a result of the maximum co-operation in the industry between management and all grades of work people, working together to get the maximum result to an extent better than has ever taken place before in the history of the steel industry, the Government of the day is embarking upon this suicidal, economic policy of discouraging the people engaged in the industry.
I wish, for reasons that I shall give briefly, that Sir Stafford Cripps were now living. I know that he lay in Switzerland suffering to a certain extent as the result of overwork, and he wrote at that time a confidential letter. I derived great personal satisfaction from the contents of that letter. The reason that I am referring to this is because it is time that it was placed on record, in order that all in our own party, in particular, and in the country, in general, can consider what is going on record.
I have referred to him because I believe that had he returned with strength to renew his work, he would have been reinforced with vision, courage and understanding as the result of lying in Switzerland, thinking things over. He would have come back a strengthened man, determined to deal with our basic industries in the way in which it will be necessary if Britain is to hold her own in the world of the future. I believe he would have encouraged us all to pursue a real Socialist policy with courage, determination and understanding, because this is the only hope for our country in the future and the only road forward for Britain.
What I have said applies equally to Ernest Bevin. I regret some of the unworthy reviews of the book which has recently been published. I refer to him because it was my privilege to be close to and friendly with him for many years. I remember the great contribution which he made in connection with the Macmillan Report, which many hon. Members have forgotten, and I recollect how it applies to the present situation and to the steel industry in particular. I will give three extracts which ought to be placed on record because the Government have embarked upon the ruination of our country.
The Macmillan Report states on page 5:
… we … have reached the stage when an era of conscious and deliberate management must succeed the era of undirected natural evolution … We must now choose our path deliberately and consciously …
in order to guide the economic affairs of this country. The logic of that is nationalisation.
On page 39 the Report states:
In one case we have been told that the demands for advances for industrial purposes are continually in excess of the ability of the bank to lend …
The logic of that is the public financing of our basic industries, and that there ought to be no public financing of our basic industries without public ownership. The Labour Party in particular needs to remember this in future, because we ought not to be a party to private industry having one penny in any way if it is to travel along the road to ruin as it will do as a result of the Bill.
The final quotation comes from page 240 of the Report. Thomas Allen and Ernest Bevin, two real Socialists, submitted a minority report. It said:
In fact, private enterprise having proved totally unable to lift the country out of the morass in which it is, there seems no alternative but for the State to grapple with the problem and for large measures of State planning …
That was written 20 years ago. It is as true now as when the Report was written, and today this policy is the only practical way to deal with Britain's fundamental problems.
My conclusion about this is that, for financial reasons and for development reasons, in order to meet the quick technical changes in this industry and to meet the equipment needs, public finance is required, and that should result in social ownership. The best analysis that I have ever read of the structure of British industry is to be found in a paper read before the Royal Statistical Society by H. Leak and A. Maizels a few years ago. It is to be found in the Library. Anybody reading pages 28 to 31 is bound to agree that the need is for at least public ownership or complete national ownership.
What I have just said is also to be found in Command Paper 6811, where there is an examination of the industry by the Iron and Steel Federation itself in the reports which it made to the Ministry of Supply a few years ago. Any student of affairs who makes an analysis of those two publications is bound to come to the conclusion that we want either a complete national monopoly of the industry or public ownership, and there is no doubt which should be supported by those who put the interests of the country first. Eventually we will have to have one Margam for the whole of tinplate production. I venture to prophesy that, as sure as I am standing here, we will have to apply this policy in a few years' time.
Supposing that policy is to be applied to shipbuilding to get the plate required at the lowest possible cost of production, and suppose it is applied to the needs of the motor car industry in order to meet the growing competition throughout the world, then it will be necessary to have a concentration and rationalisation of

these industries with the largest possible plant in the various areas. No one knows that better than those hon. Members who have given their lives, as did their forefathers, to developing the steel industry of this country. On this particular aspect there ought to be no division between us. The only issue that should arise is the best policy to be applied to the industry in order that it can develop in the way I am advocating.
That would mean about 10 Margams in this country, and there cannot be 10 Margams without public finance. We ought not to be a party to granting public finance without public ownership. For technical and economic reasons, therefore, there will be a demand for this concentration, and I want to ask the Minister whether this Bill will enable us to embark on a policy of this kind with the necessary speed. Will the Government give a guarantee that the finance will be found without resorting to public finance?
I am a product of the engineering industry. I have no hesitation in saying that within that industry, in the main, the cost of production has been reduced to the barest minimum. In this country we have some of the most efficiently managed engineering concerns in the world, and during the war it was acknowledged even by the Americans that we could turn out aircraft engines at a quicker rate, with more efficiency, and of better quality than any one in the world. We have applied not only our best production methods and motion study and the latest method of micro-motion, after which we have considered the elimination of unnecessary motions.
It is not fair to expect the engineering industry to reduce its cost of production to the barest minimum in order to help in the foreign competition which is coming, and then try to meet their problems in an old fashioned way. We must remember that very few of us would be living now if it was not for the engineering industry with its large-scale exports, for by exports we are now living. Therefore, we cannot approach these problems in the way we used to.
Not only is it necessary for the engineering industry to reduce its cost of production, but the principal manufacturing costs of raw materials ought also


to be reduced to the barest minimum. Can we guarantee that steel will be produced in the same way that the engineering industry has applied this policy if this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament? There are rings round every material that goes into the engineering industry, and if I had time I would show that there is a bigger ring round this industry than round most others.
In 1934 the cost of British steel was 98·7; in 1938 it had gone up to 139. I could give figures of pig iron, ships plates and plates for the motor car industry which show that relatively our costs were higher in this country than they were in many others. After the formation of the British Steel Federation there was an average rise of 35 per cent. in steel prices. At the same time the average rate of profit for the 43 leading concerns in the steel industry increased by 76 per cent. The industry had more capital put into it and the rate on capital increased by 40 per cent.
I have here an extract from the "Manchester Guardian" showing how the motor car industry of this country is complaining because of the relatively high cost of steel and the rings around all the component parts of motor cars. According to a steel industry publication, there are 150 trade associations with separate organisations controlling the industry and its products. It is not fair to the industry to continue to encourage or acquiesce in the operations of these trade associations. They employ legally trained accountants skilled in the new art of concealing profits. The time has arrived when this House should demand the searching investigation which is urgently required. In that investigation we ought to insist on a comparison not between the prices before the war and now, but between the prices before the formation of the trade associations and those ruling today.
It was my privilege to address the annual conference of Foundry Workers at Blackpool this summer. As I watched delegate after delegate coming to the front and speaking I determined to try to be worthy of the men representing their fellows in the foundries. Everyone knows that their conditions for generations were disgraceful. They could be compared only to the worst mines, and had it not been for the foundry workers

organising themselves and taking militant action, the conditions would not have been changed to any great extent to this day.
I consider myself a lucky man. Six years ago I nearly passed through death's door. When I recovered the specialist who examined me said he thought my organs were now in a good condition, but an X-ray showed a black patch on the lungs which he could not understand. I could not understand why it should be there either, until weeks later I remembered that for some years I worked near a band-saw where there was no dust extractor and I must have been inhaling the dust for years. Fortunately it did not matter, because it was vegetable dust which does not do much harm. Had that dust been silica and had it contained grit, I should not have been living today. I am no better than the thousands who worked in the foundries of this country and who have lost their lives because the conditions gave rise to silicosis and other industrial diseases that should never have been tolerated during the past 50 years.

Dr. Barnett Stross: I hope that my hon. Friend will agree with me when I tell him that many pattern makers who have worked for many years do, indeed, suffer from pneumoconiosis irrespective of the fact that the inhalation is wood and not silica or iron dust. It is still pneumoconiosis.

Mr. Ellis Smith: My hon. Friend is an expert in these matters. He has, to my knowledge, given the last 25 to 30 years in serving the pottery industry and the miners in North Staffordshire, and therefore I know that he is well informed. I was examined by a specialist, however, and he assured me that as far as this particular patient was concerned, I was all right; and to that extent I am grateful. That makes a person pleased at being able to carry on with his work, and it also reinforces him in his determination to do his best for others so that they should not suffer if it can be avoided.
Therefore, for those reasons, I welcome the proposals in the Bill for dealing with the foundries. Of course, it gives a nice precedent in that when we come in with great power, it will also be necessary for us to control all the foundries in the way that is now proposed.
In my view, if the Board is to function satisfactorily it must at least have the control and powers that are contained in the Bill. But even with these elementary proposals, I understand that there are interests who propose to delete control and supervision of the foundries. I hope that the Minister will stand firm in view of the black indictment against the mismanagement of foundries for generations. But, to give credit where it is due, in the main there have been great changes, and in some of the factories food can be eaten off the floor compared with the conditions 20 or 30 years ago. This only reinforces our hope that, in spite of our criticism of the Bill, the Minister will refuse to agree to the deletion of control and supervision of the foundries.
Measured by 20th century standards, British industry is being starved of capital. The United States of America, with only three times our population, have 10 times our national income. What they have achieved, we could have achieved within the Commonwealth between 1900 and 1940. The net capital formation in British industry in 1951 will have been approximately £400 million, or one-fiftieth of that in the United States. That is a very serious state of affairs. Per head of the population, our figure is only one-tenth of that in the United States, and yet we embark upon a policy of economic suicide via the Bill.
The Conservatives starved our people for years. This Bill will starve the steel industry, one of our basic industries. Between the two wars, thousands of our fellow countrymen suffered from malnutrition. This Bill will bring about industrial malnutrition by capital starvation. It is expected that the level of gross investment in manufacturing equipment in this country in 1952 will be approximately £400 million. In the United States it will be 4,400 million, yet we tinker with Bills of this kind.

Mr. Summers: Are we to understand from the hon. Gentleman's argument that he is opposed to the policy pursued during the past six years of restricting capital investment in this country?

Mr. Ellis Smith: The hon. Gentleman has not forgotten Shotton already?

Mr. Summers: Will the hon. Gentleman answer my question.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Yes, I am answering his question by asking him another. The hon. Gentleman is well informed about the steel industry; he knows it better than most of us, and I am asking him whether he has already forgotten Shotton. He knows who is going to open it in April.

Mr. Summers: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question I put to him? Is he saying that during the last six years he has been opposed to the policy pursued by the Government of this country of restricting capital investment? He has been complaining that the total capital investment in British industry is much less than it should be. How does he reconcile that statement with the policy pursued during the past six years?

Mr. Ellis Smith: The hon. Gentleman is quite right, but he ought to carry his question a stage further. More has been put into the hands of industry during the past six years than ever before. My difference with people who determine policy is that I think we should have adopted a policy of real planning, and, indeed, that we shall be forced to do so sooner or later if we are to hold our own in the world.
I do not mind the hon. Gentleman smiling because we shall see in a few years time who is right and who is wrong in regard to this. But now that he has asked the question, I will carry it a stage further. Where did the capital investment go before the war. It went where the best returns were to be had, in hotels, music-halls, cinemas, skating rinks, dog tracks, or in any other enterprise provided it would give a big and immediate return.
The people concerned said, "Never mind the mining and the steel industries. We will sink capital where we are going to get the biggest immediate return." But during the past six years capital investment has been sunk where the Treasury—and in my view they are not the people to do it; I am speaking factually—decided it was best to sink it in the national interest. Is the hon. Member satisfied?
I was saying that the United States gross investment in equipment per


worker employed in manufacturing industry is expected this year to be £275 while in Britain it will be only £45. Because of this Bill and through lack of planning the British people are fighting a losing battle for economic survival. It is because I believe this that I look upon this Bill as one of the worst Measures ever introduced into the British House of Commons.
I will conclude by asking the Minister a few questions. The first is, if in the future it is decided that the only way to save our country is by the construction of 10 Margams, will they be provided by this Bill? Does the Minister not understand what Margams are?

Mr. Sandys: Is it 10 Margams that the hon. Gentleman wants?

Mr. Ellis Smith: Sir Charles Bruce-Gardner and the gentleman who spoke on the wireless the other night, who proved to be so well informed, consider that this may have to be done. If it has to be done, will this Bill provide the necessary capital? If this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, will the steel industry be able to carry on without public finance or subsidies?
We hear a great deal about efficiency. Will this Bill make the steel industry of our country more efficient? Can we be given a guarantee that if this Bill becomes law the steel industry will continue to be run in the national interest and not for private profit?

10.31 p.m.

Mr. R. Brooman-White: I hope the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent. South (Mr. Ellis Smith) will forgive me if I do not follow him in the special points he has raised. I am sure that all of us wish to see everything possible done to improve the working conditions in those sections of the industry of which he has special knowledge. On that, at least, we are in agreement.
We are not in agreement with his confidence that a more closely centralised control is the only effective way of ensuring the proper deployment of our resources. During the debate considerable emphasis has been laid—which was not the case in the previous debates on the White Paper—on the supposed shortcomings of the Bill in providing the Board with the powers necessary to safeguard

the public interest. We have heard some most ingenious arguments, in particular those put forward by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Fienburgh). But I do not think that hon. Members, or the country as a whole, will be primarily concerned with that aspect of affairs.
The trend of events in the past has been that whenever it could be given a fair run against competition from overseas, the industry has, by and large, held its own and has met the demands which the Government of the day made upon it. We all know that the difficulties which arose before the war were primarily the difficulties of finding markets, and the difficulties which have arisen since the war have been primarily difficulties in finding essential raw materials. Any holdup in development has been mainly for those reasons.
I should like to associate myself with what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers) on the possible troubles which may arise from the Schuman Plan if the machinery under this Bill does not enable us to co-operate as effectively with it as we should in the future. I think hon. Gentlemen opposite may have been at fault in the past in recoiling so violently from the dangers of the Plan in one direction, that they ran considerable risk of falling into another set of dangers in the other direction. They were so pre-occupied with not being too closely gripped by a supranational authority that they ran into the peril of not being sufficiently closely in touch or of having adequate contact with a great continental organisation which could, if our point of view is not properly put and considered, discriminate against us and put us—particularly the Scottish industry which is, above all, dependent on overseas conditions and particularly vulnerable to overseas trouble—in a most difficult position.
I think the point which will concern us most acutely—particularly in Scotland—is the whole question of development, which was raised by the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Alex Anderson). I am extremely sorry that I was out of the Chamber for a short time and did not hear his remarks. Perhaps I may have lost more than he will lose by not being in his place now. But I have been told the general tenor of what he said,


and I understand that he was concerned with the alleged slowness of development in the industry and also the possible difficulties and dislocation likely to arise during any reorganisation.
With regard to development, we have a particularly acute problem in Scotland because of our special dependence on imported raw materials. In addition to the need for a general expansion of the industry, we face the need to reorganise some of our processes to meet the changed circumstances—the shortage of scrap and the necessity to employ more ore. It may be argued—though I do not necessarily agree—that the industry has been somewhat tardy in launching and getting on with the necessary development to meet these changes.

Mr. Manuel: Of course it has.

Mr. Brooman-White: I do not accept that view; but even if the steel industry had pressed forward more rapidly with its development I do not believe that the nationalised coal industry would have been in a position to meet any greatly increased demand for coking coal at the present time. If the steel furnace capacity was there the coking coal would not be.
If the private enterprise steel industry is at fault, then the nationalised coal industry is also at fault. If, as I believe, both sides have been doing pretty well all that could be expected of them in very difficult circumstances, then neither is at fault. But I do not see how it can be claimed that on one side there is a steel industry which is dragging its feet and on the other side a nationalised coal industry which is showing all that impetus and drive and efficiency and force which, it is pleaded, is needed in the steel industry and—which is also pleaded—can only be achieved by State ownership.

Mr. Jack Jones: I am very interested in the tenor of the remarks of the hon. Gentleman. Would he agree that had we not nationalised the coal industry we should have been still further unable to meet the needs of an expanding steel industry?

Mr. Brooman-White: I do not want to follow the hon. Gentleman into the depths of that subject. I do not

think it alters my point that the nationalised coal industry has done no better and no worse than the un-nationalised steel industry in foreseeing the present difficulties with regard to Scottish steel and the need for its development. That is the only point I am making, and I think it holds good.
Another point which concerns us—it is a particularly difficult one, and I want to be careful not to give the wrong emphasis to it—is the question of the high cost plant and how any necessary development or alteration in the structure of the industry can best be achieved in order to produce the efficiency and increased capacity which we all know to be necessary with the minimum of dislocation and suffering to the people concerned. I am not arguing that a certain reorganisation is not necessary. I am not arguing that high cost plant should be kept in production for a day longer than we can avoid. Certainly I believe that high cost plants which have been thought to be redundant have been maintained by high export prices—just as certain pits which have been thought to be redundant are being kept in production to meet circumstances which had not been foreseen. But, by and large, the fewer high cost plants we can have in the industry the better.
The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) mentioned this point in his speech, and I find it a little difficult to follow his case. I will read it with interest in the OFFICIAL REPORT tomorrow. At the beginning of his argument I thought he was claiming that unless the industry was fully controlled by the public one could not be sure that sufficiently drastic action would be taken to get the necessary changes brought about. But later he argued that in many cases the cheapest thing was to re-equip existing plant. By and large, we want to see existing plant re-equipped where possible, and that can perfectly well be done under the provisions of this Bill. Nor need we fear, under the Bill, that in the national interest guidance cannot be given in the closing down of plants that should be closed down.
In Scotland, as in the country generally, we want to be sure that the greatest consideration is given both to the national interest and local circumstances. Experience in Scotland of decisions by


nationalised concerns has made us pretty gun shy of control from the centre. The Clyde piers, for example. Under the Bill there are provisions for seeing that the necessary reorganisation is carried out in the national interest, and there are also considerable safeguards to see that there is consultation and there are also rights of appeal to the Minister. There is a much better chance that local circumstances and difficulties will be given proper consideration than would be the case under nationalisation.
Might we in the Government reply to this debate, on an important but at present somewhat obscure point, have a little clarification? I refer to Clause 7 (7), which relates to prices and transport charges. As I read it, I gather it would be possible for greater preference in transport costs to be given to remoter areas in obtaining steel. If I am correct in this assumption, it will be of great interest to Highland Members. I believe it would also be possible for certain products to be conveyed not at the delivered price, but for the purchaser, in certain circumstances, to meet the cost of transport. That also might on occasions favourably affect our position in Scotland.
There have been recent cases where products in particularly short supply have not been available from the normal local source. The consumer then tries to get it elsewhere. But if the producer in the South has to pay the full delivered price, there is a disincentive for him to meet that order. It would be advantageous to have greater flexibility at that point. If I am right in my reading of the wider powers of this Clause, there may be latitude in both directions and advantages that will recommend themselves to the Scottish public as a whole, and to all of us interested in industrial development in that area.
In conclusion, as I have said on a previous occasion, I profoundly hope that the differences which arise over this Bill will not, after we have got through the Committee stage, prove such as will leave the industry uncertain and unstable or retard its development and the growth of the efficiency on which we all know the future welfare of the industry and the country depend.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. George Chetwynd: One of the remarkable things about this debate and the previous debate on the Government's White Paper is that in no single instance has any Government spokesman sought to prove the Government's case for the Bill, either in a positive way by proving the merits or in a negative way by proving that nationalisation has failed. The bulk of their case has been based upon assertions without any shred of proof.
The Minister himself stated quite blithely that nationalisation has sapped initiative and has created among the companies an over-cautious and bureaucratic outlook, but he did not bring a single piece of evidence to support that; indeed, the record of the companies both in finance and in production clearly disproves that statement. There is among these companies now a buoyant attitude and a real spirit of emulation.
Another thing the Minister did was to make allegations that the 1949 Act created a vast State monopoly. Yet, at the same time, and in the same speech, he accused us of cutting the industry in two, having one part under nationalisation and in public hands, and another major part in private hands. Which of these statements is correct? I prefer myself that an industry such as steel, which has to be monopolistic in character, should be a public monopoly and not a private one. Yet within the overall direction of the Corporation it is clear that there has been the most keen competition between the individual firms making up the Iron and Steel Federation of Great Britain. One of the reasons why we left the companies with their former names was to encourage that kind of competition and emulation between them.
Apparently in order to solve this problem—the industry being arbitrarily split into two—the Minister now proposes to expand the supervision of the new Board over some 2,400 other companies untouched at the moment by nationalisation. In the opinion of many of these bodies, the cure is worse than the disease and they wish to be left right outside.
If we examine the facts of State ownership it is quite clear that 98 per cent.


of the entire output of ingot steel is produced by the publicly-owned companies; 94 per cent. of the production of iron ore is produced by public companies, and 97 per cent. of the pig iron produced is produced by the public companies. It is very difficult to find where this division into public and private sectors comes into it, because we were most careful in our Act to keep the most viable units within nationalisation, and leave others outside or make provision for hiving off where that is necessary.
The Government have not proved that the nationalisation of steel has failed. Even with the reluctant and foot dragging co-operation of the Iron and Steel Federation and the boycott of the Board by the steel barons, it is quite clear that during the seven months of control by the Corporation, there has been a good record of achievement. The Government have not been able to prove their case, and their case in my opinion is based solely on pure doctrinaire theory and political spite which pays no regard to the facts.
If we consider production, in spite of the dire forecasts of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) and the statement of the Prime Minister that there would be dislocation, chaos and confusion on nationalisation, there has been considerable progress, and all those forecasts have been unfulfilled. The industry is working well and production is buoyant. It is 9 per cent. up on 1951 and, as we were told today, there is every prospect that it will beat the 1950 record of 16,250,000 ingot tons by a substantial margin. The Minister himself spoke of the record of continuous expansion and progress in the same breath almost as he was condemning nationalisation as a complete flop. It is very difficult to reconcile those two views.
On 19th September, 1950, the present Prime Minister moved a vote of censure on the Labour Government in these terms:
I beg to move,
That this House regrets the decision of His Majesty's Government to bring the Steel Nationalisation Act into immediate operation during this period of tension and danger thus needlessly dividing the nation on Party political issues and disturbing the smooth and

efficient working of an industry vital to our defence programme."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th September, 1950; Vol. 478, c. 1719.]
Facts have completely proved how false that Motion of censure was and if, today, we debated that Motion and, instead of having "nationalisation," put in "de-nationalisation" and added at the end "vital to our defence programme and economic recovery", we should be on far stronger ground today in censuring the Government than they were in those days moving the vote of censure on us.
If we judge the success of the nationalised industry by considering the financial position of the industry today, again there is a great achievement in a short time. Profits at the rate of £65 million a year—£34,500,000 in the first seven months of the Corporation's existence have been mainly brought about by better running of the industry as a co-ordinated whole, and could not have been achieved if this had not taken place. Borrowing in the industry has saved large sums of money—as much as £200,000 in seven months. Again, this could only be possible under common ownership and control.
If we consider the prices of steel we know that the Minister himself took direct action to compel the Corporation to put up its prices—even in spite of that action—which at that time I opposed and did not think necessary—the price record of the industry is still in a favourable position, perhaps with the exception of Germany, in overseas markets. The serious matter which we have to watch is how far our own firms will be priced out of competing in export markets by the action of the Minister in putting up the price of steel.

Mr. Sandys: I must remind the hon. Member that prices were put up in agreement with the Corporation. What he is saying is nonsense.

Mr. Chetwynd: They were put up in agreement with the Corporation after the Minister had disposed of the previous Chairman of the Corporation—and that was the cause of the whole trouble at that time. It was a move opposed by the Chairman at that time. [An HON. MEMBER: "And by the Corporation."] And, I gather, by the Corporation.
If we look at relations within the industry, it is quite clear there has been no upset there. They are as good as ever they were. Research and education are receiving every attention. On the grounds of development of the industry again it is quite clear from the report of the Corporation for its first seven months working that organisation is proceeding smoothly as far as capital resources permit. There has been regrouping of the companies with a common interest to increase their efficiency and strengthen the industry.
Again, I claim this is not possible without common ownership. The Government's proposals for the sale of the nationalised undertakings to private enterprise are clearly, in my view, against the national interest and are more than irrelevant. They are positively harmful, because the uncertainty of the sales and the consequent ownership will cause confusion. Production will be impeded by the creation of smaller units when the most important need of an efficient steel industry today is larger and more integrated units.
The proposals to sell off the industry will again militate against its more efficient grouping. They will divide it into good and bad parts. The best parts will be in private hands and the worst in public ownership. Moreover, these proposals will create uncertainty in the non-nationalised sector and are bound to create confusion at a time when we need the maximum output from all parts. As there are 2,400 firms involved, that is a significant interference.
What is involved in the replacement of the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain by a supervisory Board? The first thing is that this creates a further division instead of greater integration and co-ordination. Because two distinct bodies are to be set up to replace one: a Board and a disposal Agency. The Board is to supervise the industry; the Agency is to take over and dispose of the assets now owned by the State. The Agency will act on behalf of the Treasury in a dual capacity, as a holding company and as a disposals Agency.
It is generally assumed that this process will go on for a long time and that the realisation Agency will be a holding company for a considerable period. What positive powers will they have to control

and run that part of the industry under their control? And how can a body of people appointed by the Treasury, primarily concerned with the parcelling out and disposal of the assets, be actively concerned with the proper control and management of an industry so vital to our economy and survival? I do not think that the Treasury could have such a split mind in this case. If the Steel Corporation is to be abolished the remaining concerns which are not sold should be the responsibility of the supervisory Board, which should be responsible to the Ministry of Supply. It should not be the preserve of a body responsible to the Treasury—a body of Dutch auctioneers and bailiffs.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) has dealt with the powers of the Board. He has shown how the Board is empowered to require that all major schemes shall be submitted to it and that then it will have a power of veto, subject to appeal to the Minister. The point is that there are many schemes which can be undertaken by these companies which will not need to be submitted either to the Board or the Minister, and the total of the smaller schemes could be such as to wreck the national planning of our economic life and, by spreading our resources thinly over a wide area, we should be acting against our real interests.
Therefore, I want to know who under this set-up is responsible for drawing up an overall plan for the industry? Is it this Board or is it the Iron and Steel Federation? Is it the Minister or is it that no plan will be drawn up at all, each company being allowed to go on its own sweet way providing it does not want a major scheme of re-organisation?
Although the companies have this appeal to the Minister, the Board itself has no appeal against any of these actions of the companies. We ought to safeguard the position of the Board in this respect by making major developments subject to Parliamentary scrutiny. Otherwise, we shall get a scattering of our resources over a wide field, which will not result in the most efficient steel industry.
As regards the positive powers of the Board, these empower it to provide adequate capacity where it is uneconomic and where no firm is willing to do so. The companies cannot be compelled to


use the money of their shareholders, but apparently it is in order for the State to use the money of the taxpayers in unsound ventures.
Why is it unfair for the shareholders to take on an uneconomic venture, but quite in order for the taxpayer to do it? Again, on the question of the State being able to set-up new plant capacity, what is the position if the State enterprise flourishes? Is it to be handed over to private enterprise to be run by them for profit, to a so-called enterprise which failed to take the original risk? What nonsense this is to talk of restoring the old steel industry to free, competitive enterprise when anything risky and unsound has to be left to the State to pursue.
Surely these proposals mean a duplication of plant and equipment and the creation of additional capacity forced upon the Government by the anti-social actions of private enterprise? This is one of the major arguments for nationalisation. This provision in the Bill clearly proves that where there is a clash between sectional and national interests, under private enterprise the sectional interest prevails. So, if this Bill goes through, we shall have the abolition of a Corporation with complete powers of policy, overall planning and direction, which arises through its complete ownership of the shares of the companies, and a substitution of a new Board with manifold duties but no real powers.
It will be able to restrain development, but not enforce it. It will have no power to enforce amalgamation. It will have no more control over prices than exists now. It will add duplication and confusion to the purchase of raw materials. It can set up a buying agency if the Minister thinks the industry is not taking adequate steps to obtain raw materials from overseas. That is sure to mean a duplication of these resources. My firm belief is that the Board is a sham, a mere facade to give an impression of respectability to the industry because the public demands control. But, behind that facade, the masters of Steel House will be in full possession and control. If we go back to the words of Lord Nuffield, it will be an absolute ramp, and they will probably have the cigars as well.
When we look at the disposal agencies and consider the magnitude of their task

when they have to get rid of £250 million worth of securities, I ask, why this division? Why is it responsible to the Treasury? I think powers should be in the hands of the Board responsible to the Minister of Supply. How much of the industry does he estimate these disposal agencies will be able to sell and how quickly? Has he seen the "Observer" of 9th November, in which their Economic Correspondent put forward the view that the Government are unlikely to succeed in de-nationalising more than one-third of the steel industry before the next Election? Even that is an over-optimistic estimate. The reason it gives for that is not the promise or the threat of the Labour Party, whichever way one looks at it, to re-nationalise, but because, as it says, high costs of development and modernisation of plant will clinch the determination of private investors to leave the bulk of the steel industry safely in public ownership.
When it is said that we need a steelmaking capacity in 1957 of 20 million tons and that, even if the uneconomic and obsolete plants are closed by any slump, there still needs to be replacement and renewal to the tune of 4 million tons new capacity, it is clear that this would have to be borne by the profitable units. Therefore, any prospective buyer has to have funds to cover not only the cost of compensation and the developments undertaken by the Iron and Steel Corporation, but also the heavy cost of future development. I will not give the examples for that, but I have them with me if they are necessary.
Another thing to be taken into account, surely, is that when the first large-scale units are sold—the modern and more profitable ones—at a high cost, how much investment money will there be in the market to take over all the other parts that are left? Surely the resources of the investment market will have been strained, and it will be difficult to find takers for the other not so profitable units, unless the Treasury get over this and make the taxpayer suffer by insisting on give-away prices for this part of the industry.
I believe that the Minister has denied that that is likely to happen. If so, if the industry is not to be given away at knock-out prices, in my view there will not be adequate investment resources to


take over the bulk of the present holdings. Therefore, a considerable part will be left in the hands of no specified body.
I ask the Minister: How, in this unscrambling policy, are we to guard against the picking off of the best cuts of the joint, and leaving the Government to dispose of, or to retain, the less attractive remnants? What will happen to the rump—or, as I believe, the major part—of the industry? How can the State and the taxpayer be protected against loss? Are the first offers of sale to be made to those who formerly held shares at the time of nationalisation, or shall we see the "Prudentialisation" of the industry?
Who does the Minister think will come forward and buy it? I am certain that it will be the big financial concerns, and this will be another case where the new steel masters who have grown up within the last few years, who were the original office boys who took over from the old steel masters, will be dead and new office boys will reign in their mausoleums.
Rather than concentrate upon the Bill, the Government should allow the Corporation to carry on its good work and should allow the iron and steel companies to concentrate on the real, practical problems of modernisation of plant, where large sums are still needed—and there are still too many small plants—and the provision of adequate coke. We all know how pig iron production is hampered by this shortage, in spite of the more encouraging signs today. They should concentrate upon providing adequate supplies of pig iron. The programme of expansion is in progress and has already produced, I believe, a one-tenth increase over 1951, but new blast furnaces are required, and required urgently.
There should be concentration, also, upon the provision of scrap, because it was the disastrous fall in scrap from abroad which checked the expansion of the industry in the early days of nationalisation. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done in all these fields, yet all those things are to be set aside while the Government play politics with the industry.
The final results of the Government's plan will be, first, the restoration of a private economic empire at the cost of the public. Secondly, a long drawn out

process of division and uncertainty, which will distract Government and industry from the real issues of the time. Thirdly, the disintegration of the industry into a patchwork, not on functional grounds, but according to whether or not it can find a buyer. Fourthly, there will be a weakening of our economy at this most vital stage and, more important, a weakening of economic planning and control over investment, which may have disastrous results in a time of slackening economic activity. The Bill is conceived in venom and born of party prejudice, and it should be thrown out.

11.10 p.m.

Mr. J. E. S. Simon: It is a particular pleasure to follow an hon. Member who has, politically, been so good a neighbour to me as the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) and it is also a pleasure to do so because I find myself going a certain way with him in his arguments tonight, and also in the arguments of the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Fienburgh). Both hon. Members started by saying that steel producing is a natural monopoly, or that it tends to monopoly. The hon. Member for Islington, North went on so far as to say that nowhere is there free enterprise in steel.
It is true that the general evolution of industry in this century—and this applies particularly to heavy industry—has been towards increasingly larger units. On technical grounds, those have proved themselves to have the advantage of efficiency. They can provide the greater resources of capital necessary. Necessarily, with that development, there has been a diminution of competition. When one has a great number of small units, competition is more active. As one has a small number of large units, or very large units, it tends to be mitigated.
But where we part company is that the two hon. Members opposite argue from that that because one has a partial monopoly, which is admittedly subject to abuse, one should superimpose on that a complete national monopoly. The main evil of monopoly, surely, is that the producer is able to influence the price of the product himself. When he can do that, whether because there is a seller's market, or because there are few units of production in the field, or because of


restrictive practices in the industry itself, then he can make a profit without being efficient. In other words, his profit does not depend on his efficiency.
However, it does not follow from that that one should go on to establish a complete monopoly under the State. One only mitigates some of the advantages, and imposes a great many disadvantages.

Mr. Palmer: How does the hon. and learned Member suggest that the Bill will prevent the evils of which he speaks?

Mr. Simon: I was going on to deal precisely with that point.
We have in this country enjoyed incomparable advantages in the way of a Civil Service of outstanding ability. But few, I imagine, would claim that the particular virtues which have distinguished our civil servants are those particularly suited to the carrying on of large-scale industry—especially in competitive conditions. What we suggest, and what this Bill does, is to mitigate the monopoly in two directions; which are the two reasonable directions in which it should be done. With great respect it is not reasonable to take a steam hammer to crack—I was going to say a monkey-nut, but as I do not want to be controversial—a walnut.
We want the minimum of control necessary to mitigate the monopoly in the industry, and to promote competition in the industry. If it be true that the evil of monopoly is that the producer is able to fix the price himself, without having a price imposed upon him and being obliged to respond to it by promoting his efficiency in order to get a profit, then the first and obvious solution is to have an outside agency which fixes the price. That is precisely what this Bill does.
The second way of mitigating a monopoly and of restricting those practices which prevent the free play of competition is to take steps towards the suppression and the ultimate abolition of the restrictive practices which may exist in an industry.
I propose to deal with each of those two things in turn. The Bill sets up the Iron and Steel Board precisely with the object of enforcing such control, and no more control, than is necessary to ensure that the public interest is paramount,

that an easy profit cannot be made, that a profit cannot automatically be made even where the producer is inefficient. In other words, it seeks to enlist those virtues of energy, enterprise and exertion which are called forth by those whose prosperity and very livelihood depend upon the display of those qualities. Where someone's livelihood depends on initiative, enterprise and exertion, one can expect to find those qualities displayed; and that is an enormous motive force which it would be frivolous in the extreme to neglect, and which it would be valuable in the extreme to harness. That is precisely the approach which this Bill makes.
I was on the question of fixing prices. I would, with respect, draw the attention of the Minister to one point where, by fixing prices, the Board can actually promote competition within the industry itself, that is to say, competition where prices are based on real costs. At present, when prices are to some extent fixed on the advice of the great national associations, there is a danger that the small firms working in the middle sections of the industry may find that prices are fixed to their disadvantage so that they cannot compete on fair terms. I would ask the Minister to consider writing into the Bill a specific injunction that the price fixing responsibility of the Board shall be used to promote fair competition.
Unless this Bill promotes competitive conditions in the industry, it will have failed in its object. It is because it has come like a breath of fresh air to blow through this industry that I believe it will be welcomed and, indeed, has been welcomed by the country as a whole, including the great steel producing centres.
I see the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Palmer) shaking his head. Perhaps the result of the recent by-election in Cleveland indicates that the feeling of the steel workers is not all that the hon. Gentleman would desire.

Mr. Palmer: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I did not lose any steel workers' votes, and if I may say so my opponent in the particular by-election kept fairly quiet about the de-nationalisation proposals of the Government.

Mr. Simon: The hon. Gentleman says that he did not lose any steel workers votes. I can only think that the ballot is less secret in his constituency than it


is in mine. Certainly, I claim on the best authority of all—my predecessor, the Socialist Member for Middlesbrough, West, Mr. Geoffrey Cooper—to represent, in his words, "a marginal constituency consisting mainly of steel-making electors."

Mr. Ellis Smith: Did the hon. and learned Member say "a Socialist Member?"

Mr. Simon: A gentleman who has not only sat in this House as a Socialist, but claimed in the very letter which I have quoted still to be a loyal member of the party.
If I may, I will go back to the point from which I strayed away—

Mr. Jack Jones: The hon. and learned Gentleman strayed away from the truth, too.

Mr. Simon: —which was the question of restoring a full measure of competition within the industry. I hope my right hon. Friend will consider, in Committee, accepting Amendments which will accentuate what I am quite certain is his purpose, which is to restore a proper and full measure of competition inside the industry.
In this connection, I would draw attention to Clause 25 of the Bill. This leads on to the second way in which I suggested that competition could be promoted and monopoly mitigated without calling on the steam hammer of nationalisation—by mitigating restrictive practices. This Clause, I think, was referred to by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith). It ensures that the steel industry comes under the Monopolies Commission. I suggest that there are very great advantages in giving to the Iron and Steel Board the powers of the Monopolies Commission in this respect, and indeed greater powers.
I think it is generally admitted in all parts of the House that the Monopolies Commission has not been entirely satisfactory in its operation, and it was part of the Election programme of the Conservative Party that we would endeavour to strengthen the Monopolies Commission. I suggest that where we have a Board, as we have here, empowered to demand information, it will be in a very good position to see that all those conditions in the industry which would, under

the 1948 Act, attract the attention of the Monopolies Commission, could be disclosed to the Board itself. I would go further and suggest that the Board in that respect should be given the power to examine those conditions; and if it finds that they are operating against the public interest it should have power by injunction to restrain them.
The second main function of the Board is to promote development. It is quite clear that any development which is in the national interest will be promoted under this Bill either by the industry itself or by the Minister. I think it was the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) who interjected in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers), and suggested that there were no powers under the Bill to keep in use production facilities which the producer wanted to close down.
That is completely wrong, and obviously could only have arisen from a failure to read the Bill itself, because by Clause 4 (3):
If it appears to the Minister … that any existing production facilities … which would not otherwise be kept in use ought in the national interest to be kept in use, he may, with the approval of the Treasury, himself acquire or take on lease, and use those facilities. …
I say that there is no form of development which is desirable in the national interest which cannot and will not take place under this Bill.
What powers are there which are desirable which can only be conferred by national ownership? What powers are there which cannot be exercised under this Bill? The right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), in the previous debate, put forward what was really the only argument we have had on this matter. He said that private companies buy up other companies which they desire to control, and that that shows that ownership is necessary for control. What sort of argument is that? If private companies want to exercise control over other companies they have to buy them up, because that is the only method known to the law of getting such control. But the Board has no need to do that because by the Bill itself it is given the power to control without ownership.

Mr. Jack Jones: It is not.

Mr. Simon: The hon. Gentleman says it is not; but if he would look at Clauses 4–7 and onwards he would see that it is given precisely those powers; and those are the powers I have been dealing with in detail during the last few minutes, namely, the powers to mitigate monopoly, fix prices and encourage development.

Mr. Jones: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman say where there are powers given to the Board under the Bill to own and control the portion of the industry which cannot be sold?

Mr. Simon: There are no powers for the Board to own the portion of the industry which cannot be sold; those powers are given to the Agency, during process of sale. But what we were talking about were not merely powers of ownership. The whole argument was that one cannot exercise control without ownership. I have pointed out that the Bill gives precisely those powers of control without ownership.
The only other argument which has been put forward in favour of national ownership as against mere power of control is that the industry will not, in private hands, be able to raise sufficient funds for its capital development. The hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees put that point with great clarity. I would say that that is a matter of opinion; and on the question of finance and economic development I prefer the opinion of Her Majesty's present Government to that of hon. Gentlemen opposite who left the country in the disastrous financial and economic state which Her Majesty's Government found on taking office. On a matter of that sort—the raising of capital for industry—I should also attach very great weight to the opinion of my hon. Friends the Member for Aylesbury and the Member for Esher (Mr. Robson Brown), who have spent a life-time in the productive units of this industry.
The final argument that has been put forward against the Bill—by the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) and the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South—was this: Whatever the argument in favour of returning the industry to private enterprise may be, accept now a fait accompli, respect the status quo. The hon. Member for Cleveland

agrees with that. I wondered where I had heard those words before. Then it came back: they were the words used by Hitler on the morrow of his successful aggression in Poland. He said that whatever had gone wrong in the past, although democratic sentiment had been affronted and the mandate of the Polish people had been overturned, what he had done had been done and we should accept the status quo—let them be friends and not disturb him.

Mr. Ellis Smith: There is no analogy.

Mr. Simon: In fact, it is an exact analogy. Both went against the democratic sentiments, democratic opinions, and democratic mandates of the world or of this country. The Labour Party now say, as every successful aggressor has always said, "Whatever has gone wrong, accept it now."

Mr. Jack Jones: Would the hon. and learned Member agree that Hitler, whatever his sentiments and whatever his activities brought him to, was backed by the biggest private enterpriser in steel in the world—Herr Krupp?

Mr. Simon: There is no question that Hitler was backed by Herr Krupp, just as the British steel producers—the whole industry—rallied in a most remarkable way and put forth supreme efforts in support of this country. But I was not dealing with Herr Krupp; I was dealing with the hon. Gentleman, who is repeating the threats and blandishments which Hitler used after he had consummated his rape of Poland. I can tell him that we pay no more regard to what he has said or this occasion than England paid to what Hitler said on that; and for the same reasons.
I turn to a matter that seems very serious from the constitutional point of view—the threat to re-nationalise. We enjoy here the benefits of democratic government under the party system which demands for its working a great deal of mutual forbearance and respect for unwritten conventions of the Constitution. Clearly, if each Government is going automatically to repeal the principal Measures enacted by its predecessor ordered progress in democratic government cannot subsist. There are three fundamental constitutional convention that govern this type of case. The first


is that a measure to be repealed should not have been the principal issue before the electorate at the Election before it was enacted. If I may give an illustration, there is little question that nationalisation of coalmining was a leading issue at the General Election of 1945.

Mr. Cyril Bence: And steel, too.

Mr. Simon: No.

Mr. Jack Jones: And transport.

Mr. Simon: I think it will be generally agreed that neither road haulage nor iron and steel were in any sense leading issues at that Election.
I will go on to give a second illustration. The issue of repeal should have been fairly put before the electorate in the Election before the repeal. If one takes the Elections of 1950 and 1951, there is no question that the repeal of the nationalisation of iron and steel was fairly before the electorate, and a majority of the electorate were in favour of that repeal. Thirdly, I would suggest that a good case for repeal should be made on the merits.

Mr. Palmer: Who is to decide that?

Mr. Simon: Obviously, these conditions must to some extent be weighed one against the other. But if those conditions are not satisfied, then it is the duty of the Government to try to work the Measures of their predecessors. That is not only constitutional sense and usage, but it is also the traditional approach of the Tory Party to the working of the party system. Where we have found major enactments as a major issue before the electorate, we have tried, on taking over, to work them. That essentially has been the approach of the present Government towards nationalisation Measures which were passed by the previous Government.
I should add that there is a fourth matter, which is not a constitutional convention, although it is a desideratum. That is, that when the question of repeal irises, the Government should attempt, not the mere restoration of the status quo, out a constructive compromise which Mould appeal to moderate central opinion. I claim with confidence that the present Government have in this Bill carried out

these constitutional conventions and that constitutional desideratum to the full.

Mr. Palmer: I must apologise for interrupting this constitutional argument again, but supposing that, at the next General Election, the Labour Party gets a clear majority of votes in the country and seats in this House on a programme including the re-nationalisation of iron and steel, would there be anything undemocratic and unconstitutional in so proceeding? Is that not the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument?

Mr. Simon: I put forward three conditions. I suggested that, to justify repeal, before the original Measure there must have been a clear mandate from the electorate. If I am right, in the last Election, there was a strong majority of the electorate in favour of repeal. It would be contrary to constitutional convention, and playing ducks and drakes with the constitution, for hon. Members opposite to go to the country to try to repeal this Measure. It shows a degree of political irresponsibility which would render nugatory the working of the party system.
We know the object of this threat by the party opposite. Not only is it irresponsible, but it is positively mischievous; because the object is to make it difficult for the Government to implement the mandate which has been given by the democracy. It is the duty of the Government to take all possible steps to carry out that mandate and to mitigate that threat. I ask my right hon. Friend to see that the industry is returned to private enterprise with some sense of urgency; and, in particular, that such expedients as selling it back on hire purchase, which would mitigate that threat and give a better price, should be tried.
The hon. Member for Islington, North gave us, in his concluding remarks, a very moving account of the impact of this sort of industry on a sensitive mind. I know the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen whom I see opposite will bear me out when I say that approaching a town like Middlesbrough from the east, one does get an extraordinary sense—an overwhelming sense of vast and beneficent power.
But there are in the industry not only machines but men. From what I have been able to see they seem to have taken on the strength, the flexibility, the resili-


ence and the sound toughness of the material they themselves work. We owe them a very great debt, and we owe them this responsibility: that when we have passed this Bill, when we have hammered it into the best shape we may, we shall leave this industry in peace to work out its own destiny.

11.43 p.m.

Mr. H. A. Marquand: The hon. and learned Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Simon), shares with me the representation in this House of one of the most important steel towns in the country. In the town itself there are no fewer than 8,000 steel workers whose output is 16,000 ingot tons a week, and in the near neighbourhood, if the additional workers in the division represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Palmer) are added, there is a total of 17,500 workers with a weekly output of close on 40,000 ingot tons—about one-eighth of the steel produced in this country.
This is a very important steel producing area, and it is natural that the socialisation of the iron and steel industry has received a great deal of attention, during Elections and other political debates. I think that in view of what the hon. and learned Member for Middlesbrough, West said earlier, it is just as well one should place on record exactly what happened at the various General Elections.
The election of 1950 was particularly conspicuous in this matter because, of course, Mr. Alfred Edwards, who preceded me as the Member for Middlesbrough, East, actually left the Labour Party and ran his Election on the issue of the socialisation or otherwise of the steel industry. He changed his mind completely from the attitude he adopted in 1935 and 1945 when he was previously elected, and in 1950 he made the nationalisation of iron and steel the main issue of the Election—and, obviously, I replied to him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones) came in and did his whack as well and the result was that I was not only returned as the Member for Middlesbrough, East, but the two constituencies of Middlesbrough, taken together, returned a vote of 51,145 for candidates who supported nationalisation

and 41,975 for candidates who were against it. The majority in favour of nationalisation for the town as a whole was 9,170.
Then, in 1951, we went through the matter all over again. The same issue was put before the electorate. In a town like that one cannot escape it if one wishes to—and I do not know that anyone did. The return of the hon. and learned Member for Middlesbrough, West, and his speech tonight, may have obscured the significance of what actually happened in 1951, because, if we take the two constituencies together, we find that the majority of voters favouring the nationalisation of the iron and steel industry in 1951 was 13,421. In 1950, the majority was 9,170.
The arguments in favour of the socialisation of this great industry which, I believe, appealed most to the men in the steelworks in Middlesbrough during both those Elections can be summarised, not unfairly, under four headings. In the first place, they believed that the proper planning of the steel industry, and the implementation of that plan in the national interest, was essential to the maintenance of full employment, not only in the steel industry, not only in the shipbuilding, engineering and other industries directly dependent upon steel, but in industry as a whole.
After all, the key to full employment is the control of investment. I am almost quoting the words of the 1944 White Paper on Full Employment. Investment does not mean pound notes or cheques as the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers) seemed to think. Investment means resources and resources mean steel. Without steel our investment programme is useless and worthless.
The hon. Member for Aylesbury interrupted my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) to ask why there had not been more investment in British industry. The answer is simple. Investment in British industry during the six years we were in power kept pace with the expansion of the steel industry. It could go no faster; and it certainly went no slower.
It is because the control of steel is the control of investment, because the control of investment is the control of, and the key to, full employment, that the workers


in Middlesbrough believed that it was necessary to have an effective control over that industry; to have a possibility of planning in the national interest for the maintenance of full employment. There is no such planning provided for in this Bill and the powers given to the Board, such as they are, are negative. The Explanatory Memorandum sets it out in more simple English than the Bill, but no doubt accurately summarises it as follows:
The Board may in certain cases require schemes for the provision of additional production facilities to be submitted for their consent, which they may withhold if they think that the scheme would seriously prejudice the proper development of the industry. The Board are to consult with the industry with a view to ensuring that only schemes of major importance are required to be submitted for their consent …
Only schemes of major importance, and only negatively; from the point of view of whether or not the Board will refuse consent. That is the opposite of a deliberate, well thought out, careful planning of the development of an industry.
The history of this industry between the wars shows, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Fienburgh) pointed out correctly and eloquently, that the industry itself is capable of planning. Of course it can plan. It knows how to do it very well, but its planning has always been negative; it has been for the putting plant out of production, for the restriction of output carefully to correspond with the profitability of certain works within the industry. What is wanted is positive planning and I see no sign that we can get it out of the machinery this Bill provides.
The second argument was closely related to the first. The men in Middlesbrough, like the men in South Wales or Yorkshire or Scotland working in the steel industry, had seen the effects of arbitrary decisions to change locations or to close down obsolete plants. After all, those living in Middlesbrough are not so far from Jarrow. And if Jarrow was not a good example they were well informed about what had happened in South Wales and other steel producing areas in the country. These men are not sentimental. They know perfectly well that plant becomes obsolete. They know very well that techniques change.

They know very well that it has been necessary to move parts of the steel industry nearer to its sources of supply.
They know that these things must happen. They are not against improving the efficiency of the industry. They are not against rationalisation. But, they want to be assured that these things are done in the public interest. That means they want to be sure that those who take the decisions are aware of the social cost as well as the specific economic or industrial cost. The Corporation was given that duty, but now much of the industry is to be left in the hands for years to come, we are told, of a realisation Agency. For all I know, the hon. Member for Aylesbury may have been right and some of the plant to remain in the hands of the realisation Agency will be new.
But it stands to reason that a large proportion will be the older plant with the obsolescent or even obsolete equipment. The decisions as to what to do with these plants—whether they are to be closed or abandoned or whether the people working in them are to be idle, as so many tin-plate workers and others were between the wars in Wales, as I know—are to be left, not to a Corporation charged specifically with a duty of looking after the public interest and subject to direction from the Minister, but to a purely financial agency. There is no guarantee, at all, that anything but the financial interest will determine these grave questions, whereas the workers believe, as I and my hon. Friends believe very firmly, that the social interests, as well as the financial one, should be weighed in the balance before any such decisions are made.
The third argument which appealed to my electors at that time was the belief that the system of administration for the industry, which we had devised, would prove to be the right one. There is something different about nationalising a manufacturing industry, from nationalising a public utility like the railways, electricity, or gas, or nationalising an extracting industry like coal. The nationalising of a manufacturing industry, with a large number of factories, requires special provision to ensure flexibility in administration and my electors thought the form we chose—that of the holding company—was the best way of achieving that. After


all, the Iron and Steel Corporation was no larger than the United States' Steel Corporation. It was smaller, I am sure, than General Motors. Both of these are large corporations, which, whatever faults they may have, are not charged with inefficiency.
To compare with that method, the method suggested in this Bill, yields the most remarkable results. The method proposed is cumbersome in the extreme. It splits the industry into a whole lot of systems of control instead of having one unique control, as was done under the Act of 1949. First, there are the firms which are to be bought back by private enterprise. Secondly, there is to be our old friend, the Iron and Steel Federation, presumably closely associating with the firms bought back. Thirdly, there are the firms not bought back, which remain the property of the realisation Agency.
I hope that the Minister will explain in some detail just what he supposes the relations of the Federation are to be with the firms owned by the Agency and what the relation of the Agency with the firms is to be. It was notorious when the Corporation was in control that there were difficulties between the unique owners of the shares of the undertaking and the Federation, which is the main provider of statistics and organisation in that industry. They may say that they are denationalising and will not have the same difficulty, but is the Minister quite sure? I should like, at least, to have some explanation of what those relations are going to be.
However that may be, there are, first, the firms which are being bought back. There is the Federation. There are the firms which are not being bought back. Added to this there is the vast range of foundries and re-rolling establishments which are coming in now, under protest. Fifth, there is the Board, brooding over the industry. In other words, there are five separate kinds of institution within the industry, instead of one, with a Board brooding over the industry, with confused and doubtful powers and consisting, as far as one can see, of the very people whom it is appointed to control and supervise in the national interest.
I suggest that in such a system, with all these five different types of bodies responsible for some part or other of the planning

of the industry, there will be constant reference of papers, consultations, telephoning, overlapping and general muddle that that system of organisation entails, and which is far inferior to the simple, streamlined and quickly-operating system which was set up by my right hon. Friend in the Act of 1949. The fourth argument, of course, was the argument about monopoly, of which we have heard a good deal tonight, but I will not attempt to repeat what has been said by other hon. Members.
The Act of 1949 had specific provisions carefully written into it to give safeguards against the abuse of a monopoly position. It established, for example, a Consumers' Council, with direct access to the Minister. Where is the Consumers' Council now? What is to become of it? Are the consumers to have no voice now in what happens in the supervision and control of the industry? Can they no longer make any complaints? All that is to go, and in its place there is a Clause saying, simply, that there is nothing to stop the Monopolies Commission having a look at the practices of this industry if it is referred to them by the President of the Board of Trade.
I thought that in an earlier speech about his plans, the Minister seemed extraordinarily optimistic about his decision to allow the Monopolies Commission an opportunity to look at the industry. He hardly seemed to be aware at that time—no doubt he is by now—that the Monopolies Commission can do nothing unless a case is referred to them by the President of the Board of Trade. Suppose the President is asked by the Minister—I cannot imagine how in any Government with collective responsibility he would do it otherwise—to have a look at the iron and steel industry, and he asks the Commission to do so.
We know from experience that it takes the Monopolies Commission a couple of years to look at even a small industry, the sort of industry that they have been dealing with hitherto. We know also—I know, at any rate; I have good cause to know, being the only Minister who signed an Order under that Act—that even when an Order is signed under the powers given by the Act, we cannot be sure that the monopoly is broken. That is what experience has shown thus far.
The hon. and learned Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Simon) made two suggestions to the Minister. He suggested that price fixing to preserve competition should be deliberately written into the Bill. He suggested also that the powers of the Monopolies Commission should be given to the Board. They are good suggestions for the improvement of the Bill, and I compliment the hon. and learned Gentleman on making them. As we both represent Middlesbrough and we are both well aware that numbers of people in that town are in the habit of laying wagers, perhaps he will join me in a little wager outside.
I am willing to bet him almost anything he likes that his right hon. Friend will not accept those suggestions. I should be very surprised if he did. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) was right, and that the proposals are a sham and are not really intended to bring the industry under any effective kind of public control at all.
I do not complain that the price-fixing power given for the price of a product sold within this country does not apply to the price of the product when sold outside this country. But I do agree with the hon. Member for Aylesbury about the desirability of giving some information, or perhaps putting something in the Bill, about giving power of some sort over the export trade of the industry.
Particularly should the country be reassured that, in our dealings with the European Steel Community—and there must be those dealings—that if that community should reach a point where it is empowered to take certain steps for controlling output in the even of supply outrunning demand, this country will have an effective body to negotiate.
Men in my constituency are concerned about this matter. We are concerned to have continued expansion in the industry and although we hope that that will go on for a long time to come, it stands to reason that we must reach a period when supply will outrun demand; when concerted efforts must be taken to safeguard our overseas trade; and when that time comes, it will be as well to know who will conduct negotiations on our behalf.
Is it to be the independent Iron and Steel Federation, bringing to bear its prewar and outworn attitude of restriction, or a body charged with specific responsibility by Parliament in this country to make the best kind of arrangements possible for the maintenance of our own overseas trade and the maintenance of our full employment?
I have tried to cover a very wide range of subjects, and hope I have not trespassed too long on the time of the House; but I consider those subjects to be of importance.

12.3 a.m.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) represents a constituency of steel workers. I represent a constituency of steel consumers. As such, may I tell him that I thought he showed a touching faith in the efficacy of that moribund institution, the consumers council. I should have thought that consumers' interests are more effectively safeguarded in this Bill by representation on the Board itself, and by the power entrusted to the Board to fix maximum prices, than by the provisions in the Act of 1949.
May I here make the customary declaration of interest, which one should make? It seems to me that every speech from the opposite side of the House—although that of the right hon. Gentleman was less markedly so than the others—has rested on the simple assumption that in this industry private and public interests are irreconcilable. May I suggest that the truth is, as so often is the case in life, at once more charitable and yet more complex. One can have a difference between private and public interest, but very often they do coincide. The function of the State is to facilitate that coincidence and, should there be a divergence, to apply a correction. The Bill, as I understand it, applies just that. The 1949 Act suppressed private activity. This Bill adjusts private activity to public interest.
More than one hon. Member opposite, particularly the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) spoke of the need for development, and as I share that postulate I should like to make that my starting point. I think we would all agree that the interests of the country


demand the maximum possible expansion of this industry consistent, of course, with not so inflating capacity as subsequently to incur a depression. That I accept. The question is, which of the two Measures which we are considering, the Act of 1949 or this Bill, is the more calculated to produce the maximum possible development?
This question, it seems to me, is the very heart, the nub of the whole matter. More than one hon. Member opposite has challenged my right hon. and hon. Friends to produce evidence of any damage caused by nationalisation. All I would say is that in the middle of this summer the British Iron and Steel Federation announced a capacity target for the next five years of 20 million tons. Almost six months have gone by, but to my knowledge—I think the statement is correct—the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain have not publicly endorsed that figure.
I suggest that that tardiness is not without significance. Consider for a moment the character of a nationalised undertaking such as the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain. In the first place, it is publicly accountable. I have no doubt that public accountability has many virtues, but the last thing one can say about it is that it is an encouragement to the care-free taking of risk.
In the second place, a nationalised undertaking such as the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain is obliged, year in and year out, to pay a steady return on its capital. Should it make a mistake, it cannot, as can a private company, seek relief by temporarily passing a dividend. It is under a permanent obligation.
In the third and last place, a nationalised undertaking such as the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain is absolutely secure in the knowledge that should it neglect a certain opportunity of expansion there is nobody else to expose this default to the public; there is no competitor. To that extent it is a monopoly, development being in the hands of one body, the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain.
These seem to me to be heavy disadvantages. Every one of them inclines to caution and not to adventurousness, and

every one of them is operating now. Every one of them would be done away with under this Bill. Consider the change that would in fact be effected. We would have restored the financial autonomy of 80 to 90 de-nationalised firms, and each one of them, whether or not one agrees with it, would have what it now lacks, a financial motive to seize any opportunity which its rivals neglected.
I can imagine hon. Members opposite saying, "Profit, filthy lucre," but I would point out that for any one company the only way of adding to its profit is by expanding. At this point the private and the public interest coincide. A divergence between the two would arise, and this, if I surmise rightly, is the thought in the minds of hon. Members opposite, if the de-nationalised companies were to get together and deliberately restrict capacity.
That is the thought that has cropped up today in a succession of speeches from the benches opposite. I agree with the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Fienburgh), who is no longer here, that the development plans of an industry like this should be looked at collectively. There are cases where it is difficult for any individual company to go charging ahead on its own. I agree, further, that if that collective consideration is done by the private firms themselves, then there may possibly be a restriction of capacity. I am not saying that there has been, but such a restriction could, in fact, arise, but to avoid that possibility is precisely the purpose of this Bill.
The collective consideration is entrusted to an independent and outside body, the Iron and Steel Board. Should the privately-owned industry, despite that provision, try to restrict capacity, there would be several means of redress. In the first place, under Clause 9—the hon. Member for Islington, North ignored this completely—the Iron and Steel Board could open the country to a flood of imports. It could say, "There is an inadequacy of supply; we will import."
Not only that, but the Iron and Steel Board—this independent and external body—would be obliged to report on the restrictionist attitude of the industry to the Minister. It could, in fact, arraign it before the public, and then if the Minister agreed with the Board he could have recourse to action. He could himself enter the industry.
The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) rather deprecated this provision. He said, "It is not good enough; this is not enough of an accelerator." In the "Financial Times" this morning there was quite a powerful piece on the development plans of the National Coal Board. It is true to say that the Coal Board has a development plan which many coal consumers, rightly or wrongly—I am no judge—consider to be inadequate. Further, the execution of the programme is, in fact, lagging behind the target.
Suppose the right hon. Member for Vauxhall were the Minister of Fuel and Power, supervising this nationalised undertaking. Suppose he were to agree with the critics. No doubt, the Coal Board would have very good reasons. It could say, "We do not think it would be economic to expand more rapidly than we are doing." If that were so, the last thing the right hon. Gentleman would do would be to instruct the Coal Board, nevertheless, to go ahead. He could argue, but the most he could do would be to argue. Here, under this Bill, he could, in fact, back up his argument with action.
More than one hon. Member opposite has spoken of the past and has said that this and that mistake was committed. I suggest that that is only half an argument. They have to go further than that. They have to show that such mistakes are likely to be endemic under the system provided for in this Bill, and not one of them has attempted to complete that argument. Each one of them, in turn, has resorted, if I may borrow a phrase

from the speech of the right hon. Member for Vauxhall, to assertion.
It has been said that this Bill is a façade, that the real power behind the scenes would be Steel House—the British Iron and Steel Federation defying and holding at bay the publicly appointed Iron and Steel Board. Perhaps I may reply with a counter assertion. I think I can reasonably claim a fair acquaintance with the ideas which Sir Andrew Duncan had on this subject. I can affirm that the picture of the relationship between the two bodies depicted by hon. Member after hon. Member opposite today is a fantastic caricature of the conception held by Sir Andrew Duncan. It is true that Sir Andrew Duncan has gone, but I can also affirm that there are others who still hold that same conception.
Then it has been said—I think this was the theme of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South—that there is no point in de-nationalising this industry. It was asked: where is the capital to come from for the expansion? It is quite true that there is a shortage of capital. It is true, too, that by nationalisation one can give a particular industry a privileged claim on such capital as there may be as, for instance, the British Electricity Authority has, in my submission, had a privileged claim. But that does not remedy the shortage of capital—

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and 40 Members not being present, the House was adjourned, at Seventeen Minutes past Twelve o'Clock a.m. till this day.